The fun continues!

I have a big smile on my face. Today in church, Kwan, my favorite 10-year-old, brought her Book of Mormon Stories book with her to church. She was very busy reading throughout sacrament meeting. Rewind to Saturday.

Kwan was invited over to our apartment with Ning and Viw and Phraew for our Achievement Days activity. We played some games, and gave them each a copy of the Stories from the Book of Mormon book and a reading card to track their progress as they read the book. We read the first two chapters together. Ning's reading was a bit halting, but she felt much better and read more confidently after she heard me take my turn with my halting Thai. We played with the modeling clay I bought, played a few rounds of Don't Eat George, played pass along card memory. There was a slight drizzle falling as we walked from our apartment to the little steakhouse on the corner. This restaurant has a lovely frangipani tree outside and is always full of people. Sister Jon the primary president asked to borrow the memory game to play with the primary children today.

Then we jumped on our bikes and rode 5 km to brother Udom and Sister Suay's house. I asked Sister Suay to help me practice reading and speaking Thai while Jim helped Brother Udom do some family history. I asked her what Thai food she likes to eat and what she likes to cook. Then we talked about our grandchildren and I showed her pictures on my iPhone. They live in an old traditional Thai house built of teak on stilts. We sat under the house on the wooden table with a rattan mat. An extension cord from inside the house powered Jim's laptop and a fan attached to the wall above the table to keep us cool-correction, the fan attempted to keep us cool. It was a cool day, we've never had such a cloudy drizzly day in the 6 1/2 months we've been here. By cool we mean low 30s. It was fun as we came down the narrow soi to their house, the entire road was blocked with a pavilion that someone was putting up, and we had to make our way through tables and chairs to get to their house. We learned that a house nearby has four sons that are going to be ordained monks, so the family is putting on a party for the whole neighborhood. They put up 80 tables with eight chairs per table. At first I thought it was a house just across the Soi- I was a little astonished when I realized they were setting up tables all down the intersecting Soi and the house hosting the party we could just see a block away. Talk about a block party! I assumed they would be monks for at least the rainy season but they will spend 10 days to two weeks as monks and then go back to their jobs. The magnitude of the party and the brevity of their service seem incongruous. 

We booked it from there to the church where I met the young women to accompany them to visit one of their peers who has been missing church lately. I was so proud of the way the three young women and one leader were so excited to make this visit. I felt confident enough to go with them without having Jim along to translate.

You can imagine how happy I felt when Kwan, Ning, Viw, and Nuun all showed up at church today. Everyone we visited Saturday except Udom and Suay showed up!

Karyn

This is Missionary Fun

In May I had a little 11 yr girl over to draw a picture for the song in primary, I Love to See the Temple. I doubled her on my bike to buy supplies. We bought tubes of water colors, felt pens and lots of great poster size watercolor paper. She drew the Hong Kong temple from a pass a long card I had. I think she had fun and I will give her pictures to the sister missionaries who are teaching singing time. I asked her to sign the picture because I want people know she created it. She can use the attention. 

These pictures are from dress rehearsal. The young men and women of the church prepared a traditional Thai dance to perform at the nationwide youth conference held the first week of May. We couldn't believe how excited they were to rehearse and perform. The dance depicted the traditional way of planting and harvesting rice.

At the end of one of our dance practices, I asked one of the young men whose nickname is Golf-yes that really is his nickname-if he had ever golfed. He hadn't but was interested to try it so we planned a young men's activity to go to the driving range. We wound up with four young men and four young adults, the two zone leaders to help me teach them, and myself. We had a lot of fun and Karyn says in the picture they all look like they're pretty proud of themselves and pleased that they got to try what is admittedly a hiso pastime. Thais love the word hiso which is short for high society. 

We had another heartwarming week. I am seeing so many things that touch me.  Yesterday after Jim and I ate at a little raan aahaan (food shop), I felt I should thank the cook. He was a little man, older and as many hard working Thai's, looking worn out.  In Thai I thanked him for the delicious pad Thai.  He looked blank.  Then his coworker repeated what I had said and he smiled.  Many times when I speak Thai, people are so surprised that they think I've spoken English and their brain does not compute at first.  His smile after understanding what I'd said just lit up his whole face-a smile missing many teeth but melting my heart.  I realized the prompting to thank him was probably more for me than for him because at that moment I felt such a love for these good humble Thai people.  I am trying to follow promptings and watch and see the blessings for doing so.

The title of this post is taken from the General Conference talk "It's a Miracle", by Elder Neal L. Anderson of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles. He came to visit Thailand in May and all the missionaries were able to go to Bangkok to hear him speak. It was wonderful! and his story with the line, "This isn't missionary work, this is missionary fun!" rang true with us.