Tie a yellow ribbon . . .

From the hottest mission in the world to the bitter cold of Utah ... Sister Webb is home safe and sound and resuming her nursing studies at BYU.
Our family thoroughly enjoyed our trip to pick her up -- and to get a little taste of why she loved it there so much.
The people of Thailand are warm and genuine. We will never forget the faces and embraces that warmed our lives and increased our faith and awareness of God's love. And, we'll always be inspired by our tour guides faith, commitment and courage. She's an awesome missionary!
It was a profound honor to be at the baptism of beautiful Boot on the last day of Sara's mission. Such a sweet and remarkable woman we were privileged to meet and share in that experience.
Thanks for the welcome of friends, family, balloons, signs, and yellow ribbons!!
(E-mail us if you would like a copy of her report from 1-09-11)
Welcome home sweet Sara!!

To everything there is a season ....

Sister Webb will be returning from her mission on December 28th.

Her mission report will be at 9:00am on January 9, 2011.

Thanks for your support!

See you next week!!

(Earlier baptism for Pim.)

December 12, 2010
So the really good news of the week is Boot. I already told most of you. She is incredible. Her baptism will be on Sunday! She is single and she has an American boyfriend who is coming to visit soon. So of course we were really worried about the law of chastity - shouldn't have worried. We taught it yesterday and there was no hesitation when she said she would keep it. She is really an incredible woman with a ton of faith. She has already finished the BOM - well before her baptism. She is a miracle. She just walked into church a little over a month ago and announced she wanted to join. There is a phrase in Preach My Gospel - it says Heavenly Father will help you find people who are prepared - "He will lead you to them or will lead them to you" or something along those lines. So true. Heavenly Father is really awesome, in case you were all wondering.
So what else to tell you... I must admit this week was pretty boring aside from Boot. Oh just kidding... we got a way sweet new investigator this week. Her name is Ja - We invited her and went back to teach her the next day and she is awesome. She works at some sort of Christian place - so she is really familiar with Christianity and even reads the New Testament every day. But she hasn't officially become Christian. Perfect. We taught her the Restoration and she was all over it. I am excited to teach her again this Wednesday. She will be my last lesson in Srinakarin. Weird.
I love this place -- it will be hard to leave. So far, I've just convinced myself I am staying for a really long time. But, next time I talk to you, it will be to your face! Yay! So anyways, let me take a moment and tell you all that I love your guts. And your faces. And everything about you. Get ready for some serious fun here in the land of smiles. And traffic. And heat. And people driving motorcycles with their two year old's hanging on for dear life. And delicious food. And really, really good pineapple. I hope you are excited. It will be a blast with me as your guide. Practice your Thai - you know lots of people that speak it. Hunt down some of my old companions or something. And practice your bowing. Don't worry. I will teach you how to do that.
I LOVE you. See you next week!
Sister Webb

I love my life!

December 6, 2010
So I am sitting in the internet cafe next to a big window right now. Guess who just walked by? Boot! And guess what she was holding in her arm! The Book of Mormon. I love my life. She didn't see us. But that was a fun little sighting. She is doing really well. She only has 100 pages left in the Book of Mormon. She wants to finish it before her baptism. Her date is still set for the 19th.
As for members that I really love - I think I have told you about Ma Nong before - she is like the second mother of all of us here. This week I love her really a lot. Even more than usual. She is so adorable. We went over to her house for dinner last night and we met her dog - she is the one that has a dog named Beauty that she renamed ugly and wants it to die. So now I finally know what Beauty looks like. She really is kind of funny looking. But it turns out that we spent like 20 minutes talking about this funny little dog and Ma Nong loves the heck out of it. It was really cute. I am very excited for all of you to meet Ma Nong when you come. She actually speaks quite a bit of English. Every time she calls me she says "Hi Sweetie!" She is so adorable.
As for other investigators, there aren't really a lot. But there are a couple. We taught one last week - Woon - I don't remember if I told you about her. We taught her again last night and it went really well. She is one of those people that is very open about life - very willing to tell you everything she has ever thought or said. Yesterday she told us that she has been having some family problems and fighting with her husband. After one fight, she started to pray in her heart - she said "If God is really there, and Jesus is real, then please help me calm down." She said after that she felt a lot more peaceful. Then she asked for help with her family - help with her husband. The next day he bought her a present and was a completely different person. So now we have her undivided attention. Of course she went off on a spiel about how she thinks she can worship Jesus and Buddha and that she can't get rid of Buddhism. But we will let her budding faith take care of that soon. People honestly believe that Jesus and Buddha can coexist - that Christians will be received by Jesus in Christian Heaven when they die and Buddhists will go to Buddhist heaven - that it is up to us which one we want to go to. It is pretty crazy and doesn't really make sense to me, but that is a prevailing train of thought here. But we have only taught this woman twice so we will work on that.

The poster companionship for the church!

November 28, 2010
So this week was a lot of fun. Lots of different and interesting things to do here. First of all, Sister Eyestone is still sitting in the chair next to me. We are setting a record - 2 and a half moves together with out a threesome. We didn't get a new companion. We don't know what Pres. Smith is going to do when I finish - and apparently neither does he. We asked him and he said "I only know what I'm doing tomorrow. We'll cross that hurdle when we get there." So who knows.
After moves meeting was THANKSGIVING DINNER! Yay for Americans that live in Bangkok! Yay! It was amazing. We went to a family's house that lives in this super fancy neighborhood that everyone calls little America - you go in and everyone is white and driving around in cars that have the steering wheel on the left side. It is crazy. Pretty much all the white families that go to church in the international ward live in this neighborhood. We walked into the house and it was like America - little Americana decorations everywhere and everything that would make a house American. The dinner was American too -- and delicious! All the fixings of American food!! The family was adorable - the dad works for the embassy and they have four kids - one of which is attending BYU right now. It was really fun. I had a pretty embarassing moment at one point. The 16 year old daughter mentioned that she had to write an essay for school the next day (no Thanksgiving break in Thailand) and we asked her what it was about - she said Palm Oil farms in Indonesia. I heard Paul Moyle farms - like it was a person. So I wanted to know more about this Paul Moyle because I had never heard of him before. I asked if he was still alive. She looked really confused for a second and then her and the 13 year old boy started laughing really hard. Of course after that they had to tell everyone. By the end I had lost all credibility as someone who had a functioning brain. I couldn't convince them that I am really not an idiot. After that though, I was beginning to question that myself. So that was fun. Luckily the next day Sister Eyestone made a pretty big blunder herself - she answered the phone when the zone leaders called and said "Hi this is Sister Webb". So now we are both firmly in the spastic/idiotic range. Apparently we are so unified we have started to lose our individual identities. That is true unity. We should be a poster companionship for the church, if you ask me.

From light to dark

November 21, 2010
We did get a pretty cool new investigator this week - her name is Tuey and her daughter is Oom. We just met them inviting. We went back and taught them and they were pretty interested. We have a lot of brand new investigators right now - people that we have only taught once. We will see where they end up going. It is just really hard to get people progressing off an invite - you talk to them on the street for five seconds and they give you your number and then you show up and have all this stuff you want them to do and it isn't really what they were expecting. So it can be a little tougher to get them up and running. But some of them start moving. We will have to see.
We are having a grand old time running around and inviting streets that we have already invited 50 times. That happens when your area is the size of a pinprick. Sister Eyestone and I pretty much know each other backwards and forwards. I think I know more about her than I do about myself. She is a ton of fun. She is now officially my longest companion - she just outlasted Sister Meyers from the MTC. We figured it out and she has been my companion for 1/4 of my time in Thailand. I would LOVE it if she stayed with me ... we'll see.
So we had a great week here! We are excited about one of our investigators - Boot. I have mentioned her before. She wandered into the church a couple of weeks ago with one of her friends. She is doing really well. And really well is an understatement. We taught her last week and she said she couldn't come to church because she was going out of town. We were bummed but understood. Then she walked through the door yesterday - she postponed her vacation just so she could come to church. Then we taught her after church and she already has a rock solid testimony of the Book of Mormon - I asked her if she could feel a difference in her life from before and after reading it and she said it was like light and dark.
Well, I love you all to pieces. Really.
Sister Webb

Hey! Inviting is fun!

November 14, 2010
So we had a good week here in Srinakarin. Let me tell me about my new philosophy for my mission. We don't have a lot of investigators. Or at least we didn't at the beginning of last week. So one morning I say to myself, "self, it looks like there aren't going to be any baptisms before you die" So I ponder that thought. Well, honestly it was a little sad, but i think to myself that we have been working hard and freakish things keep happening to our investigators, so it is not like I am super down on myself. So then I tell myself, Well, I have another six weeks before I die. I am going to tell as many freaking people as possible that families can be together forever. After that, I am not going to worry - I am going to stop worrying about number of lessons we teach and how many investigators are progressing. Obviously I still want them too, but I am not going to worry about it. So that is my new philosophy. Armed with that in mind, we hit the streets. Turns out it works. We got six potential investigators two days in a row - the normal is 2 or 3. Yesterday was epic - we taught five lessons and got six new investigators, including a cute little family where the dad was glued on our every word and excited to try family prayer. Other new investigators included two older women, a young mother who seemed quite willing to try something new to find "true happiness", and a friend of two investigators that we were already teaching. It was a sweet day. We taught all day.
I told you about Boot last week - she walked into church with her friend Taw. They are both great but Boot is really really great. She has prayed every day, read the scriptures every day, and was at church again yesterday and already joking with the members. She feels right at home at church. She readily accepted a baptismal date - she was really cute - I was like "Will you follow the example of Jesus Christ and get baptized" you know - the whole spiel and she was like "I don't have any white clothes". I take that as a yes. After we explained that we provide the white clothes she was all over it. Her friend Taw is a little slower but we have her to thank for all of them being at church.Yesterday she told us that she has passed by our church hundreds of time - daily - and that she never thought she would go in. Then one day she decided to go to church. Seriously. That was it. Then they were two Sundays ago. Yesterday they brought a friend and another little girl. They said they are working on Boot's older brother and trying to get him to go. Seriously - they are referral machines.
So anyways, we had a really good week - lots of new investigators. A couple of new investigators from last week showed some signs of progression - have started praying and reading. We are working on getting them to church - the perennial problem.
Have a great week! I love you all!