With Sister Larson at a beautiful park in Bangkok

July 4, 2010
Hello everybody! It has been a great week here in the belly of the beast. I will tell you about all the investigators that you are familiar with. Pim is still our superstar in every way. She is getting interviewed for baptism on Friday. If she doesn't pass, no one in the history of the earth should have ever passed a baptismal interview. All we have left to teach is tithing and fasting, both of which she already knows. She is hilarious - she learned about fasting in primary so now it is the answer to every question. We were teaching about the Sabbath day and we were like "So what should we do on the Sabbath?" "FAST!" Ok - yes - we fast the first Sunday of the month - good answer. What else should we do? "FAST!" She just really likes fasting for some reason. So we are excited to actually teach fasting tomorrow. Her little friends learn with us too - they are hilarious. When we ask them to read a scripture, they all read it together - very loudly and with a beat. We just try really hard not to laugh. We figure it is a good thing - all the neighbors can hear the word of God whether they want to or not. It is also really funny because the grandpa is OBSESSED with making sure that we have a glass full of ice and Pepsi. The lesson will be going along and it will get interrupted because our ice has melted a tiny bit and he has to make sure the cup is full. He is a great guy but we are really sick of the ice interrupting the lesson. :-) We are excited for her baptism. She is too - she tells everyone her baptismal date. We are trying to get the mom of the other two girls interested - she said that she is going to come to the baptism. We had a really good showing at church yesterday - 8 people. Do you remember Laa? We have only taught her once because then she left town. She is back now and came to church yesterday. She is adorable. We are excited to teach her again. The elders love her too so there shouldn't be a problem when they pick her up after we leave. She is the one that is a referral from America and is trying to get back to America. We are trying to help with that. We also had Lek - a 19 year old investigator who wandered into church last week. She only went to RS but that is a step in the right direction. In RS we somehow got roped into a musical number - the teacher wanted to sing some random song about every man being free to choose and it isn't in the hymnbook so we got to sing it for everyone. It was completely random and really funny. Luckily our investigators were all there to watch us make idiots out of ourselves. Good times.

One week and about 2000 pass along cards later . . .

June 27, 2010

So this week has been interesting. We have officially become inviting maniacs. It is pretty much all we do. We go out in the morning and we have a stack of pass along cards. We walk down the street and hand them to anyone who will take them. About half of people will take it out of your hand. We stop and talk to people who are sitting or standing for about 15 seconds before they get bored of you and hop on a bus or just stop looking at you. (When they turn around and stare in the other direction, we take the hint.) We have calculated that we have given out about 2,000 pass along cards this week. There was one morning when we were really excited because we invited ALL morning and talked to hundreds of people and only a couple were mean to us. They all rejected us but most were really nice so we counted it as a great morning. We have gotten a few potential investigators out of all the inviting - but just three or four. But that is ok - because at the end of the day we feel good because we talked to masses of humanity and did our best. When we first got here we had a hard time with talking with everyone because they were all on the move - but we are getting better and talking to more people. It is actually kind of fun.
Thailand is literally breaking records all over the place. Last week the mission found 417 new investigators (that means that they were potential investigators, had an appointment with an opening and closing prayer, gave a commitment, and have a return appt.). When Pres. Smith first got here, that number was in the 70's-80's every week. The work is really exploding. The new schedule forced everyone to invite all morning and now we are getting good at it - and it is paying off. We are trying hard to find a family to teach. We did find one but of course they didn't live in our area. That is ok - we gave a good referral to those Elders. I suspect that baptism records are being broken too - I am sure we will find out at zone conference.

Hello from the Beast!!

June 13, 2010
It has been an interesting week. Lots of things to get used to here in the beast. But it has been good ... really good.

Our really good news of the week is that we found our superstar investigator. It seems that there is always a superstar that is ahead of everyone else. This time she is 11 years old. She is the granddaughter of a member. She has been coming to primary for months now but of course the elders didn't give her the time of day because she is a girl and 11 years old. We have started teaching her and she already has a rock solid testimony and a baptismal date for the last Sunday of the moves. She is adorable. Her name is Pim. We teach her twice a week and she is our high light. We are teaching her tonight about the Plan of Salvation and Sister Larson made these sweet little visual aids - it should be pretty fun.
We met a lady from Taiwan on the street the other day. She can't speak Thai but she speaks English. We brought her a mandarin Book of Mormon and she kind of freaked out - she was like "I have this already!" A friend gave it to her in college. She even went to a Mormon church after she broke up with a boyfriend and said she felt peace there. She said that in Taiwan everyone knows who the Mormons are. It was really cool. She said that she is coming to church this week. But because she can't speak Thai we had to give her to the International elders. But that is ok - we would have just had to hand her over when we moved anyways. I just think that Heavenly Father has been preparing her for awhile.

We're not in Kansas anymore!!

June 13, 2010
OK. So you know how I said I didn't think I was going to move? Turns out I lied. I am not in Korat. In fact, I am in ASOK. That might not mean much to you. Maybe its nickname will help you picture it. It is "The belly of the beast". The beast being Bangkok. I have gone from outside of Bangkok my whole mission to the belly of the beast. It is crazy. Completely crazy. I am in total culture shock. This is the area that got closed because it is the center of where all the protesting was going on. So we are opening it. Here is the other fun bit of news - President has already told us that he will be closing our area at the end of this moves to the Sisters again - so we are in this limbo area. He told us that we are here to find investigators for the Elders. So that means inviting all day long. So far our system is that we just pass out English fliers and if anyone stops to ask a question about it or even slows down, we hit them with a gospel invite. We stick pass along cards inside the English flier though. So basically we just pass out pass along cards and talk to the occasional passer by who slows down for a second and a half. We also hit bus stops - people are stationary there - but you still have to be quick - the bus comes at any second. We have found a couple potential investigators that we have appointments with this week. We will see how that goes. We tried to meet a whole bunch of people at church but I can only remember like one person's name. They are all way excited that there are sisters here. Too bad it is only for six weeks. Right now I am just in culture shock and kind of longing for my bed in my sleepy little neighborhood in Korat. Give me a couple weeks and I will be used to it.
It is crazy that I am where all the stuff happened last month - you would never know by wandering around and just looking. It is completely normal - we have been right where all the protests were going on and now it is just life as normal. It is like it never happened. We still haven't seen the buildings that got blown up - they are the only trace of what happened here a month ago.
I can do this! I love you all! Sister Webb

A pretty stellar week!

So it has been quite a week here in Korat. Lets just say that we have doubled our progressing investigators and our investigators with a baptismal date. That should give you a hint.

We started teaching a really cute little family - a mom, a daughter, and a son. They are adorable. We invited the daughter and she said we could come back and teach her family but we didn't have super high hopes - it was kind of a random invite. But when we came back, they were there. The son is adorable. He is 12 and he sits and listens to the lessons like he is 30. He has all sorts of great questions - we were teaching about prophets and we said that God chooses the prophet and he asked how Thomas S. Monson knows that God chose him. Good question. Then he was like "Does this guy know he is the prophet?" He is so cute. Then he went through all the pictures in the BOM and asked if each person was "Jesus, a prophet, or an apostle?" They are awesome. We are really excited about them. Our other little family is still doing great - the one with a mom and four kids. They were out of town for church this week but we think they will come next week.

At church yesterday we basically got two baptisms handed to us on a silver platter. These two kids came in with their grandparents and the grandpa was talking to us and told us that he wanted us to teach them - ok, can do. Then he told us that they had been going to church in another branch and had already learned a lot so he wanted them to get baptized. So we sit down with them to teach them and we taught the restoration and they both said that they already believed it "100%" We set up a baptismal date for a month from now. Unfortunately we can only teach them on Sundays because they live really far away. Apparently their house is right in between Korat and another branch and so they have been going to the other branch but have decided to come to Korat. We were pretty excited, to say the least. They are really cute kids - the boy is 13 and the girl is 12. We don't mind having baptisms handed to us.
- the rainy season has started here. It rains every day at about 3-5 ish. Usually it is one big burst. If you are unlucky enough to be on your bike for the big burst, it makes for an uncomfortable rest of the day. But it is nice because it is significantly cooler. It just makes it hard because a lot of people won't show up for appointments if it is raining. I have been pretty wet and pretty muddy lately. But I prefer it to 120 degree weather.
As you can see, it was a pretty stellar week. We found tons of new investigators again and have been really blessed in that area. Sister Christensen and I are having a blast. I love you all so much! Have a great week!

Sister Webb

Thailand is really on the verge of something big.

Hello everyone!

This week has had some craziness. Mostly good craziness. I will start with telling you about all the investigators you have heard about. Saeng is still doing great. But someone in her family died this week so she has been at a funeral. We haven't taught her since Wednesday and she wasn't able to come to church yesterday. But she is still great. we aren't worried. We just miss her because she is so darn much fun to teach. I love teaching people who keep every commitment and pretty much have a spiritual experience every week to share with us. Yay. We have a new investigator that has a baptismal date - I told you about her last week. She was the one that basically invited herself. We walked up and handed her a pass along card and she was like "when are you coming back"? She is awesome. (Her name is Lang, by the way). She loves what we teach, has already read a bunch in the BOM, and has a baptismal date. We are really excited about her. We went out and visited May last week (she is the one that was going to get baptized but then didn't). She still has an incredible amount of faith. She also came to church on Sunday. She has to ride a bus for an hour to get here. I don't think she will ever cease to amaze me.
So we have a whole slew of new investigators again this week. We were out inviting one day and this lady stopped on her motorcycle and started talking to us - she basically said that she wanted to learn and before we could even say anything she gave us her phone number and address. We taught her on Saturday - she has four kids. We asked her why she had stopped us and she said that she had a good feeling when she saw us. Pretty cool huh? Her family is adorable. She has a son and three daughters. - age 17,15, 13, and 11. They all were there for the lesson and we are so excited. Sister Christensen and I tend to be a little optimistic - we are already planning their baptism :). But it could happen. They were quite promising.

I love you all! Have a great week! Carlie - good luck at graduation. Stop getting old. And stop getting prettier. It just isn't good for my heart. "See" you all next week!

Sara

The political unrest has been pretty crazy.

I know I have already told you about Saeng. Let me tell you again. She is absolutely amazing. She was at church again last Sunday and saw the Elder's investigator get baptized. She said that she felt strongly that she needed to get baptized too. She also said that since she met us she is happier. She is so awesome. We are meeting with her three times a week so we should be able to get through the lessons and get her baptized - she loves going to church and is already friends with all the members. She is really attached to a little baby in the branch - she carries her everywhere. It is just really good to see because the members fellowshipped her really well and she stays at church forever just talking to people and enjoying it. And that is great because she is from Laos and her family is there so I think she gets kind of lonely here. So church is really great and she loves it and she wants to get baptized and I am so excited and I love her and I could write forever and ever but I should probably stop.
I taught a lesson in a casino the other day. We invited a lady and then went back and taught her and we were sitting in her house and she told us that she runs a casino out of her house - so we look in the corner and there are all these game tables. I guess we will tackle the gambling issue when we get to that point. She was pretty legit though. Her name is Nong.
The political unrest has been pretty crazy. There has been a curfew country wide - nobody is allowed out of thier house after 9:00 until 5:00 am. We are in by then anyways but we have been coming home at about dark because we don't want to run into any problems. There really haven't been a lot in Korat. The day we were on Lock down someone burned a building down town, but since then we haven't seen anything - we have been safe. But we see tidbits on the news and see the blown buildings and it is crazy. All the missionaries are out of like four Bangkok areas and have been moved elsewhere. But I hear it has calmed down a lot. We had a fun time in the house that one day. Our house is TEENY so we were going kind of crazy.
We had a member in our branch get her mission call this week. She is going to be serving in Thailand. It was kind of funny though because the call letter and the handbook were all in English. We met with her and tried to help her translate it. In case you were wondering, I don't know how to say measles in Thai, or insurance, or briefcase, or any number of things. It was really funny. We had to look up every other word. But hopefully we helped a little bit. She is adorable. She has been helping us teach a lot and even came inviting with us the other day. I don't think anyone will ever say no to her - she is just too adorable and sweet. She has been a member since she was eight - one of the few in Thailand. I am excited because I will still be here when she comes in the mission.
I love you all to pieces and I will talk to you next week. It should be normal time - P-day will be back to normal. I love you!