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