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.