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.

We see Miracles!

The picture's a bit fuzzy-it was getting dark, but we wanted to show you our backup when Karyn's bike had a flat tire!

We have seen miracles in the Lord’s work this week. they have made us cry in gratitude and smile with joy. Our branch has struggled with contention and pride that has made it hard for new converts to be fellowshipped and for members to be strengthened in serving each other and feeling the spirit guiding them. The branch has not grown, it fact it has been shrinking. It seems after a few months of hard work and persistence on the part of all of the four of us missionaries laboring here and in the great faith of some members, the Lord has begun to pour out blessings here. 

This is the first Sunday since our arrival 5 months ago that I felt the Spirit so strongly in Sacrament meeting and witnessed investigators received with such love and fellowship. A new student from our english class come to church unannounced and dear sister M enfolded her with smiles and friendship. This student, after the 3 hours of meetings, stayed to begin learning the gospel with the missionaries and has accepted the invitation to be baptized next month. In fast and testimony meeting, one sister jumped up to the pulpit to bear her testimony. She told the congregation through tears that this was the first time she had done this in her 18 years as a member. She wept as she told of her struggle to let her husband serve as a leader in the church. She had resented him taking time to study his scriptures and serve, as she said she was more interested in him working and making money. She has begun studying the scriptures herself, and feels their power in her life. It is a struggle for members to become converted after gaining a testimony. It is a regular occurrence in Thailand to have a leader that does nothing for various reasons. There are so many changes to make in their lives. This member’s powerful testimony allowed the spirit to teach us all and other meaningful testimonies followed. 

The Young Women's Day that I helped plan for the district was another miracle. On Saturday, young woman travelled from our 5 branches to meet together for the General Young Woman’s Meeting, one week after the actual meeting because of translation time. 

I had no idea when planning, what the theme of the General meeting would be. What a blessing when I watched the broadcast in English the day before our event and realized that my inspiration was perfectly in line with their emphasis. I felt impressed to have Jim help take a picture of each of the girls and Photoshop it in front of a temple of their choice. I also planned that the girls would make a white temple dress hanger with a poem attached to remind them every day when they see the hanger that they will one day hang a temple wedding dress there. This will encourage them to choose modest clothing, and persist in their righteous standards. I had a lot of difficulty finding supplies for this project and decided that we would abandon the project and just go to the aquarium in the afternoon. When I talked to the district young women's president and heard of how excited she was to do this project I made one more effort. The Lord blessed me with a fantastic helper. I reached a milestone while working on this project. I made a phone call myself to Sister Nida without having Jim translate!! We celebrated with high-fives. Sister Nidaa helped me find supplies, and together we designed a beautiful hanger. The girls were ecstatic to have their picture in front of their favorite temple. Very few of them had seen a temple in reality. They love the Temple dress hangers which they made themselves. 

As a climax to the day we watched the general young women's meeting where we heard about Standing in Holy Places, and saw a video of a young woman getting up early, going by train and bus to go to the Temple alone. We also watched the video The Miracle of Personal Progress. Jim was able to put Thai subtitles over the English ones. 

Yesterday as I met with my young women's presidency and a recently called class president and counselor I was delighted to hear of the plans these young women had to perform acts of service, visit less active members, and have fun activities. I asked them to come back with suggestions in a week-they left the room and burst into the room in half an hour their faces glowing with excitement. They said their brains were overflowing with ideas. They couldn't wait to tell us. I told them that this is how the Holy Spirit works, and that they had experienced inspiration. Sunday evening I made a call to my recently called second counselor and she told me that she is going with the class president to visit a less active girl who came out to the activity on Saturday. 

Friday when we had preparations for the young women's Day on Saturday largely completed we scheduled time to cycle out past the ring road to invite Sister Yaa to come to the young women's day. This was our second long ride of the day and it had been 40°C. When we arrived at the home where Karyn had visited in December the house was closed and no one was there so we called her. Her mother said that they lived on the south side of the river in Warin. Since we were about 8 km from our house in the wrong direction we said there was no way we could make it to visit them that evening and we extended the invitation over the phone. Yaa asked if sister Toffee was going to be there. When the answer was no she decided she wouldn't come because she wouldn't have any friends. We told her that Phed and Plohy could be her friends, she agreed to come. It was dark and cool as we started to bike home laughing at our worst navigational error so far. When a dog came out of the darkness and snarled at my feet I was terrified and screamed and screamed. I made plans to buy some pepper spray or something that I can attach to my handlebars to chase the dogs away. This has happened before but I have never been as terrified as I was this time because in the dark I couldn't see how big the dog was or how close it was. We never did find out how big it was because my screams scared it away. I decided I liked the “dogs on leash” bylaws that we have in Canada. 

The funny part was that the next morning when the branch president went to pick up Yaa at the address we had been given, the girl he picked up was Taa not Yaa. Taa is a young woman whom I had never met but was less active and she had a good time all day long. I know the Lord wanted to have her there but it illustrates the difficulty we have in working with the member information we have. All the lists we have from the computer system of the church have people's full names. Very few people use these names and we know them all by their nicknames. Jim has worked for months and finally found a way that we can put the nicknames into the computer and print lists that will avoid this kind of mistake in the future. 

Yesterday after church one of the young men came up and told me that he liked when I played my violin at the baptism Saturday evening. I replied that I liked the way he shared his testimony. Unfortunately what I really said was, "I like the way you shared your bicycle. " Everybody we told about this has a good laugh!

This Wednesday we have 32 new missionaries arriving in Thailand. This is a larger group of missionaries than have ever arrived in this country before and includes the first of the wave of younger missionaries who have responded to the Lord's invitation to serve earlier. They are bravely coming here with less time in the MTC to learn the language. We are privileged to watch over them and serve with them. 

We have been praying for more senior missionaries to come. We see and are told how essential what we do is to the Lord’s work here. A new senior couple arrives Wednesday as well. The husband served in Thailand before Jim. 

I noticed on Facebook that someone in Calgary was excited about the weather being 19° and planned to wear shorts. Here it was 40° and I can't wear shorts!

Karyn 

After a fun Family Home Evening

Hot season is here.

Our work in Ubon continues. We spend our weeks with the common denominator of biking around the city in 39 degree heat and smiling at the good people who love to practice their English on us as we ride by. Our days are very full. As leadership support missionaries we are serving in the branch and district YM presidencies for Jim and as YW president and district YW counselor for me. Each week is also busy with teaching English classes at the church and at a school for the handicapped.We have been spending time with a delightful family. The father has a baptismal date for this weekend and his wife is earnestly studying for a testimony as well. I love this good, kind family!

I am planning a district YW gathering in Srisaket, one hour away, for all the YW. We will visit about Personal Progress, have some fun with photoshoping each girl in front or the temple of their choice, practicing a dance number for the upcoming nationwide youth conference in May and end with the inspiring Young Woman's Broadcast from SLC. It will be translated one week after the actual broadcast and I think the girls are looking forward to seeing it. Two weeks ago I asked two young woman to prepare talks for this district meeting on how their personal progress is helping them to follow the Savior. One young woman shared in Young Womans on Sunday how preparing and studying her Personal Pyrogress book for this talk helped her with a challenge she had this week. I loved watching her as she shared her experience. The other young women were enthralled with her story. I understand limited amounts of what is said but can easily see the enthusiasm and feel the Spirit pouring out on these choice young girls.

Yesterday we watched an inspiring DVD from the church. Dallin Oakes quoted Abe Lincoln,"The Lord must have loved the common man because he made so many of them". Then Elder Oakes said,"The Lord must have loved the people of south east Asia because he made sooo vvveeerrryyy many of them!". This Mormon message is on LDS.org and I hope you watch it. I am so excited seeing how there is now a stake in India and in more and more countries in this area of the world. The work of the Lord is hastening and it feels good to be part of it. Somedays are harder than others but we feel the Lord blessing  and sustaining us.

A Great Start to the New Year!

The weeks go by so very quickly. We love working with the Saints in Northeast Thailand. We serve in the district in men's and young women's programs, teach English at the church and at Ratchathani University.





We have made visits to members who live in remote areas, and have visited families encouraging them to research their family trees and prepare to go to the Temple.

Jim with his expertise helps them log into the FamilySearch system and begin their research. The family we visited this week was very excited as you can see from the picture.

Many saints of very little means make great sacrifices to attend the Temple in Hong Kong, others can attend every year, but they all look forward to having a temple closer in Thailand.

Lots of people we meet are interested in why an older farang couple are riding bikes around town, so we tell them we are missionaries and easily start a gospel discussion. It's so much easier to talk about religion here than it is in Canada. Less than 1% of the population of Thailand is Christian. We feel they need to know about Jesus Christ, and we feel so happy to tell them of our Savior and his love for them. This week we met a nice couple at the bike shop while my bike was being repaired. After the usual preliminaries I asked, in Thai, if we could visit them at their home and share a message that God has for them. They accepted. I smiled not only because they accepted, but because they had understood my Thai-Yay!

The Thai sister missionaries here are incredible!

 We gathered at the church to go visit some of the young women who haven't been out to church for a while. My group went to visit Yaa who lives an hour from the city. We caught a taxi but we didn't have a real good address for her, so we walked around talking to her on the cell phone for a while before we found each other. Sister Sombunit Cheerfully suggested that the Spirit would guide us. Sunday morning Yaa and her mother took a bus for an hour to get to church. 

This is the kind of bus we took back from her house. We arrived back at the church just as Jim showed up with two bags of somtam and sticky rice for lunch.

The Good, the Bad, the Ugly

UGLY-While cycling, I saw this cast-off bed leaning against the building. For the un-initiated, this is a traditional Thai bamboo bed-comfy-not! Some nights it felt like I was sleeping on this.

BAD- bad is the mattress that came with our apartment which is now leaning against the wall behind our wardrobe because the landlord won't take any of the furniture out which we don't want.

GOOD-After two weeks of the sore back we caved and bought a soft mattress Ahhh the good!! Note the effect!

Loi Kratong is a traditional festival where you float a incense stick laden, candle lit raft that looks like a centerpiece on a nearby river or pond. The tourist guides emphasize that it originated in offerings to the traditional water goddess, and has become symbolic of letting go of grievances, etc at the end of harvest. This is a picture of Karyn with her Kratong. They also had the balloon lanterns like we sent into the sky at the beach and in Chiang Mai. For those not there-it's like the lanterns in the movie Tangled. Karyn wants to bring some home to light with the grandkids. Anyone think of a safe place and time??

Our first week in Ubol, pronounced Ubon

We are in Ubol Ratchathani-near the Laotian and Cambodian borders. Twenty six hours after leaving Salt Lake city (at 8:30 pm) we arrived in Bangkok.  The office couple arrived and we were taken into Bangkok for blood work to determine if we had syphilis. This was Thai government requirement for us to get a work permit. We also needed to have a photo taken and an ID card made for Thailand. That evening we were invited to dinner with all the Bangkok senior missionary couples, President and Sister Senior, and Elder and Sister Watson, the area president. We realized we had been up for 50 hours with only a little sleep on the airplane and a nap before dinner. The next morning we were picked up at 6 AM to fly to Ubon where we attended the district conference all day until after 4 PM, then were shown the apartment the elders had found for us. It is a sweet, basic little place just a five minute bike ride from the church-but empty of everything except a hard bed, tiny kitchen containing a sink and a fridge, and a small table-a small bathroom is also included. There was no drinking water, toilet paper or pillows for the bed so we decided to take a taxi to do some essential shopping. Our bedroom air conditioner made loud noises so we hauled our mattress into the living room, flopped down and went to sleep. We laughed the next morning when the major repair we thought the air conditioner needed was completely unnecessary when the apartment service man moved the unit about an inch! Why didn't we think of that!

Friday we were very blessed in making contacts with good people at the alternative medicine department at the hospital, a fruit stall, an English-language school where we stopped to use their Wi-Fi to help us find a bike shop, and people in our apartment. We gave out some pass along cards and invitations to the English class at the church.

Saturday we brought bicycles and I love riding around town! Last night we rode to Tesco-a 15 minute ride away and bought a foam cover for our hard mattress. We bungee corded the covers onto Jim's fender rack and happily rode home in the hot, humid dark with our bicycle lights flashing.

Our first Sunday in the Ubol branch we were asked to give our testimonies. As I did, I looked into the smiling, kind faces of the members and felt grateful for them. All during the meetings I listened carefully for any words I could recognize-certainly some people speak fast I couldn't make out much. After church, the members always have a potluck lunch. A sister handed me a plate of curry and I smiled and said “Khohb khun maag kha (thank you) and tried some conversation-I'm going to have to do a lot of language study this week, let's just say that! I made myself useful and washed dishes in the kitchen instead.

In the 70s the streets were full of saam lors or three wheeled bicycle taxis, and they were also full of bicycles. Now we see very few bicycles-everyone has scooters or nice new cars.  As I came out of the church I noticed that there were nine bicycles there for the nine missionaries, all the members had cars, trucks or scooters. I decided this is a good thing that the members are so prosperous.

The highlight of church meetings today was recognizing one tiny elderly sister. She is the mother of Sister Chompoonud and eleven other children. She remembered me.

We had some incredible som tam at a restaurant close by on Friday before we went shopping for furniture. After church we enjoyed the potluck. the fresh vegetables and spicy dip were fantastic. I loved seeing all the sticky rice containers, and things that people brought.

Sunday night we went on splits with the missionaries to the humblest home Karyn has ever been in. She loved looking into the face of Brother Bunraai and his earnest expression and happiness as Jim and Elder S taught about the Melchizidek Priesthood. He joined the church in April and faithfully sets up the chairs every Sunday. Karyn felt so excited to be here. She said there is no where else she would rather be than helping teach the gospel to such a good, humble man. She even got to recite a one sentence principle for the lesson.