I think this time she really IS golden. Have I said that before!?

Tabitha, Jill, and Marie -- formerly known as
Sister Richins, Sister Christensen, and Sister Livingston

September 27, 2010
สบายดีไหม? AKA How are you? This week was another interesting one. We are trying to rebuild our investigator pool. It tanked a couple of weeks ago, like I told you. This week we had a golden thrown into our laps, however. Her name is Nit. We call her Ma Nit. This time I think it is a real one. I know I say we find 'goldens' a lot and then you never hear about them again. Do you remember all those pass along card stories Sister Chambers and I would make up? I am sure this was one of those - one of our pass along cards found its way into her hands. Actually I don't even know where the pass along card came from. I am just glad that she ended up with it. We got a call from the Bangna sisters who said that the office had called them with a lady that had called from a pass along card. Turns out the office made a mistake and she lives in Srinakarin. So we get the referral. Let me tell you how often people call the number on the back of the pass along card. NEVER. This is the first time in my entire mission that I have gotten a referral like that from the office. So Sister Urisa calls and says - this lady wants you to call her right now. So I do. And I make an appointment with her, not realizing what I have just been given. She accepted a baptismal date faster than you could even imagine. She kept saying: "Can I just say something?" Then she would tell part of her story and how she knew that it was guidance from Heavenly Father and that she was so excited to be there and that she wanted to get baptized. It was crazy. I was kind of flabbergasted. Is that a word? Is that how you spell that word? I think so. She came to church yesterday which makes her an official baptismal dater! Yay! She loved church. We are also working with her family!
We had an epic week with Ma and Pa. We went to teach them on Saturday and ended up teaching for 3 1/2 hours. All their concerns came spilling out - how Ma is worried about being able to go to church because of Maeng, their grandson, and how Pa is still not sure he believes because he has some sort of health problem and he is praying but it isn't getting better. We pretty much just talked through their concerns - but most of it was just "your life won't ever be perfect - you won't ever not have any concerns. You just have to trust and go forward." We thought it ended in a good place but then they weren't at church yesterday. Huge bummer. We are going to drop them tonight - tell them that we will be here when they are ready ... But that we aren't going to teach them anymore. They broke my little heart, I tell you what. But anyways, we are putting them in God's and their own hands now - we have taught it all and given them all we've got. It is up to them now.

Week #50 in Thailand!!

September 20, 2010
Well, it was an interesting week, to be sure. It all started out with the alligator farm on Tuesday. Let me tell you - that was fun. We started by going to an alligator wrestling show. But the name was deceiving. There wasn't really any wrestling involved. They more just wandered around and dragged the alligators by their tails. So that wasn't that great. But then we went to an elephant show and the elephant came right up to us and we got to feed him peanuts and touch him and play with him. It was awesome. There were like 3 people there because it was a Tuesday in the middle of the day - that makes it nice. Then we went and fed crocodiles dead chickens on a string. That was the best part. I told you about it in the picture explanations. The price of admission was well worth it for just that. One elder found a dead fish next to a pond and picked it up and put it in a bag and fed it to the alligators. Weirdo. Then we took pictures with tigers and saw an albino alligator. Pretty sweet. After that we all went to lunch and ice cream. All in all a very fun p-day.

On Wednesday we discovered that one of our new investigators is going places in life. She accepted a baptismal date - practically committed herself. She has already read up to Jacob in the Book of Mormon. She is awesome. Her name is Kwan. But then she didn't come to church yesterday the little punk! We will have to figure out what happened on that one. But she is really sweet. She loves to say my name - she will say it before every sentence. She will be like "Sister Webb, I don't think I pray the right way. Sister Webb, are you coming today?" It is really funny. She can't remember Sister Eyestone's name because that one is a little harder so she just says mine. She is really cute. Just have to get her to church.

We got a sweet new investigator last night. We invited her on Saturday and we were introducing the BOM and we were like "we give it out for free" and she said "So what if I am interested?" I took that as a sign of interest. We went back and taught her last night. She is really cute. She lives in a tiny speck of a house with her husband and two young children. We couldn't get her husband to sit down. He was working - he fixes taxis so he was right outside and could hear the lesson I think but wouldn't sit down. She is a taxi driver - she drives from 4 am to 4 pm every day. Crazy. We went to teach and she was like "I want to know why Jesus died". That is a question a lot of people have - they see pictures of him on the cross and they know it is important but they aren't quite sure why. So we answered her question using the BOM. It was sweet. She really likes the BOM already. That was a good way to finish out the week.

Well I love you all dearly! Have a great week!
Sister Webb

No, Christianity and Islam are not the same thing...in case you were wondering

September 13, 2010
On Saturday we were out inviting and a lady invited us in to teach a short lesson and gathered her family - her husband and two kids. She has three kids but one wasn't there. The husband fed us some sort of strange food with gooey stuff in the middle of a leaf. I really don't want to know what it was. But it wasn't entirely nasty. Anyways, they are a really cute family. On first lessons we usually only use about 10 minutes and introduce the concept of covenants - baptism and then how that can lead to being with your family forever when you make covenants in the temple. The mom was all over it. The kids were kind of paying attention - the daughter had heard that Christianity had an ordinance to wash away sins so she piped in for a minute. The dad listened but I don't know how interested he really is. We asked the mom to say the closing prayer though and it was amazing. She said "Heavenly Father, please help me be with my kids forever. In the name of Jesus Christ amen." Then she had a smile on her face that I can't even describe. It was so cool.
Another cool new investigator is named Goon. Yes I am serious. That is her name. As in that story where the good fairy comes and turns little bunny foo foo into a goon. I got quite a kick out of it, to be sure. Anyways, we went to the first lesson and she told us that she thought Christianity and Islam were the same church. What?!?!?!?!!! I have never had someone think that before. But I asked her what she knew about Christianity and she was like "I know you have a month of fasting" and I was like, "actually, that is Islam" and she was like "aren't they the same church?" "Why no - no they are not." We got that one cleared up pretty quick.
Random fact about Thailand - monks are out and about early in the morning - they wander around and people give them donations of food and money and such things. Usually we don't see them a lot because we are not out in the mornings. But I am sitting right next to a window and watching them all walk by in their bright orange robes. It is pretty cool. They don't wear shoes. They must have some pretty sweet callouses. The other day there was a monk walking by and I reached into my bag because I needed some pass along cards and he thought I was getting a donation for him. So he stopped and was like Thank you! Just picture the awkwardness of that situation. I can't give a monk money! I can't give anybody money! Much less a monk! So you have a Christian missionary staring at a Buddhist monk who thinks that the missionary is about to give him money. Finally I just said "Sorry - I don't have anything" and he kept walking. I hope there weren't a lot of people that saw that one. Awkward! For future reference - never stick your hand in your bag when there is a monk walking by. Unless you are intending to give him money. Just some tips on Thai culture.

That little squirt really wormed her way into my heart

Goodbye Sister Pet
Training Sister Eyestone from Orem, Utah

September 5, 2010
Hello my dear family! How are all of you doing this lovely day? As you all already know, I am sitting here with my ลูก! (AKA child). Training is an interesting adventure, I tell you what. So far we are having tons of fun. Right after she got here everyone decided to be busy so we have been inviting a lot. Yesterday was a really good inviting day - one lady let us in her house to talk to her and we got two phone numbers of people with families - one lady has FOUR kids. Jackpot. Hopefully they will actually let us come back. Inviting is different with a brand new missionary - it is mostly just me talking. Ok so it is all just me talking. So it is a lot harder. But I am working on it.
So more on my ลูก! (By the way, that is pronounced like Loog, if you wanted to say it out loud.) She is from Orem. She went to Mountain View High School and we graduated the same year. I have actually watched her play basketball - apparently Skyline played Mountain View in the State championships our senior year. And I was there watching and she was playing. So I have already seen her I just don't really remember. Skyline won that game. She is still a bit bitter about that but we have managed to be friends despite that bit of history :) She speaks Thai really well. She has five little sisters. How fun is that? Six kids and they are all girls and she is the oldest. She really is hilarious. We laugh a lot.
As for investigators. Ma and Pa: (By the way, their names are Ma Rujira and Pa Santi - we just call them Ma and Pa for short). They are doing AWESOME! They both came to church again yesterday, along with three grandsons. Ma wants to get baptized really soon. We think that we are going to be able to baptize them before she gets eye surgery. So if all goes well, that will be in the coming weeks. They both just kind of leaped forward in the past couple of weeks and are now ready and willing to get baptized. I know that Ma is fine with getting baptized with out the family - that won't be a problem. We are just waiting on the final word from her doctor on when the surgery will be. They are so adorable. They come to church and spend most of the time chasing their crazy grandson around. But they are there and adorable and all dressed up in their Sunday best! We are teaching them tonight. That will be fun.
Suki is still doing well. She couldn't come to church yesterday but we had a really good lesson about the Plan of Salvation with her last week. We were talking about living with families forever - I talked about Lauren, it was really cool. She recently lost a brother and her husband. And so we were both crying. She said that if she didn't have God to help, she couldn't do it - exactly how I feel. So that was really great.
Love you all!
Sister Webb

"So I can just ask Heavenly Father if this is the right path?"

August 29, 2010
In case you have been counting, I have now explained 8 of the nine investigators at church. The last one's name is Saeng. She wandered into the church a couple weeks ago because she was curious. We have taught her a couple times now. She is very open but I wouldn't say she is on the fast track to baptism or anything like that. She is still more curious than anything. But she was at church yesterday! Huge step. We had a good lesson with her last week when we taught with the Bishop's wife. The Bishop's wife was awesome when Saeng came to church - she was all excited and went straight for her. Come to think of it, all the members were awesome yesterday. All of our investigators had friends. It was a great day. Another cool thing about church was that Suki and Daranee, two of our investigators, are now bosom buddies. Everyone thought that they are mother and daughter. They had never met before. They just really hit it off. They were tucked in a corner the whole day talking to each other about their life stories. Suki ended up taking Daranee home. So basically our investigators are fellowshipping our investigators. Pretty sweet.

We met with Suki - the woman that met us on a Song Taew and invited herself. We watched the Restoration DVD with her and talked about praying to find an answer and she started tearing up - she said "So I can just ask Heavenly Father if this is the right path?" Why yes. Yes you can. The member that was helping us teach was awesome - she told about when she got an answer about Joseph Smith - how it was at 2:00 am and she was all by herself and she was praying and suddenly she just knew. The member was crying, Suki was crying, it was all great. She was one of the millions of investigators at church yesterday. She is adorable. I really love her.
Well, my friends, it has been quite a week. I think I can honestly say that yesterday was the best day of my mission. To have two families at church and progressing and then some other surprise investigators and then to hear about the miracles that got them there. Amazing! We were giddy all day.

When we pray we can ask questions

August 24, 2010
We were out inviting and stopped to rest because Sister Pet was a little wiped out. We are just sitting in front of someone's house and thought we would take a picture. That person came home while we were sitting there. It was pretty awkward.
We taught a new investigator named You. Yes that is really her name. Could lead to some confusion. Stick with me. We invited her forever ago and she has been hard to get a hold of but another one of those that we just felt we needed to keep trying. When we got there we started talking about prayer and we said that when we pray we can ask questions - like if there is a God. And she said "I want to know so bad! I want to know if He is real." She has had some spiritual experiences in the past and so is ridiculously open and pretty much already believes in God - just wants to make sure. She has a day off on Sundays :) We are excited about her. She is already asking for advice on how to share it with her family - they all made fun of her when she said that she was going to meet with us but she wants them to accept it. She talks like she is already a member. She was really cute. We are really excited about her.
We taught a really cool investigator named Book. She was awesome - this was the second time to teach her and she was like "why would God send us here if we lived with Him before and we were probably happy and then we have to come on this earth and have trials? We talked about it a lot. We weren't able to really satisfy her. She just didn't want to accept that it would be better after this life - but we are working on it. She was really sweet - she just really wants to know.
Thursday- We picked up Sister Pet and she officially moved back home.She isn't back to full speed working yet - Pres. Smith gave permission for us to leave her in theapartment alone. But it is fun to have her back around. We have officially forbidden her from speaking Thai with us - we are trying to get her ready to go to New Zealand. It is really funny. She hates English and says some really funny things. After we picked her up we took her straight to two appointments. We taught a new investigator named May - she is Christian and is really cute. Her husband is African though so if he ends up interested as well we have to give her to the international elders. Darnit. After that we went and taught a mother and daughter named Ice and Ooy. This was really cool because we invited them on my first day in Sriankarin. They have been hard to get a hold of and have canceled some appointments but there was always something pushing us to keep trying. They were really cool. It was a great first lesson and they committed to come to church next week. They were heading out of town for Ice's birthday so couldn't come last Sunday but they said they would come next week. They were just really cute - when we prayed Ooy said that she got goosebumps when we prayed. Yay! Spirit! So that was a good day - three new investigators.
It is a lovely Wednesday morning and I am sitting in my favorite internet cafe watching quite a large storm roll in. Quite fun. I forgive you all for not being at home. I guess you are all over the world - kind of fun that I am writing four people and two are in Ireland, one is in Puerto Rico, and one is in LOGAN . . . . AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. That is the scariest one because I am pretty sure that Carlie still needs a babysitter but now all of the sudden she lives on her own and does things by herself. That is weird มาก. (aka very weird). Anyways, I hope that are all having a great time in your respective hemispheres. Here in the Northeastern hemisphere, it rains an awful lot. But that is good because it has cooled down a little bit.
Love you all!
Sister Webb