Hi everyone! Again!

This week FLEW BY!! Like, I almost feel like nothing even happened between last P-Day and today! ....But then I think about it... and A LOT HAPPENED.

OK So on Tuesday we were pretty much stuck at the church allllllllllllllllllllllllll day 'cause we had District Meeting at 1, English meeting at 5 and then English class at 6:30, and it's not like Sis Reedy and I can just go home and come back like all the other missionaries in our district 'cause Don Mueang is so far away from the church. Anyway. So in the time between District Meeting and English meeting, we were calling members and investigators to set up appointments for the week. We ran out of people to call, so we decided to call Udomdet again. Udomdet is that taxi driver who we met my veeeeeeeeeeeery first week in Thailand who gave us a free ride because he was so happy to hear our message. His phone has been off ever since then, but we've been calling him every day. :P Anyway, HE ANSWERED!!!!!!!!!!! We were so excited!!!!! Turns out he lives in the apartment complex that our investigator Ben lives, which is right next to where we live!!! Whaaaaat. Anyway. We set up an appointment to meet the next day. 

I was wayyyyy nervous, 'cause for the last 9 weeks I'd been building this guy up in my head. I was afraid that when we finally got to teach him he wouldn't be interested or as great as I thought, and I didn't know if I was prepared for him to reject us. :( Well, we finally got to sit down with him and he's still interested in learning! He's always had questions about who created the Earth and why are we all here. Just things he's just knew had answers ever since he was a kid. He wanted to read a Bible 'cause he knew it talked about the creation, so when he read the BoM he was disappointed that it didn't explain it right off the bat, so we had to show him where it does. He isn't what I expected, which threw me off a little, but he's searching for truth, which we have! And if he keeps searching, he'll find it.

OK But the craziness with Udom doesn't end there. He asked us why Christ died for him, so I asked him about how much he loves his kids, and that Christ's love for him is greater than that, and that's why he died for him. But when I asked if he had kids he was like, "Yeah, they know you."

...

Sis Reedy and I were like, "Uh..... we've never met your kids."

And he was like, "Yeah you do. My daughter says she meets with you."

....

We asked what her name was.

"Ben."

.......................................................................................................................

WHAT

Udomdet is Ben's FATHERRRRRRRRRRRR

We met this guy randomly my first week and then he disappeared. Then Sis Reedy and Sis Steele met Ben randomly at a 7/11 on the big companion exchanges day and have been teaching her ever since then. THEY'RE FAMILY. Also- Ben has a brother who saw the BoM on her table once and started taking it to work to read. They take turns with it. Yesterday she said that they actually fought over whose turn it was to read. YEAH. THAT REALLY HAPPENED. We're trying to find a way to teach her brother... he's only free in the early morning. :/

Whoa. When I think about this family, and how God has prepared them.... I feel so... small. I also feel comforted by the idea that I know that I can't really mess this up for Ben's family. Obviously Heavenly Father has a plan for them. They're so ready for the Gospel. It's a miracle!!

Also- we got BALANCED KEY INDICATORS!!!! It was a miracle, really. We needed an extra investigator at church, and a guy form the other branch brought his friend who wants to change religions. So now she's our new investigator too!!! It was so great. :DDD

Things are so amazing here. Sis Reedy and I have seen so many miracles with the people we serve and with us. The Lord has really put us through the fire here in some occasions, but he's also brought us to the highest mountain tops and shown us great things. I can't believe there are only two weeks left of this transfer. :(

I don't have much time to talk this week 'cause we're going to Ayutthiya (I dunno how to spell it)- an ancient buddhist place... thing... I dunno. Every one raves about it. Our whole district is going! 

Love y'all!

Sis Zaugg

Another week gone by....

Heyyyyooooo!

Well! First off: starshine moonbeam is back from the dead!!!! Or, in other words, my bike is fixed. Did I already say that I named my bike starshine moonbeam? Anyway. It was actually a small miracle that it works, 'cause the part that the gear shifter thing attaches to was the thing that I needed, and when the bike guy called the parts people they only had ONE more part left!! Yuuuup! What a blessing. I'm way paranoid about it breaking again though, I think the bike is just cheap and poorly made. I have to be way careful not to bend it again!

Our house is infested with termites, so for the past few days some termite people have been showing up at our house and tearing the ceiling and molding off. It's pretty entertaining. Apparently they do gardens, too, 'cause we came home one day and all of the plants in our garden were gone.

This week we invited 3 of our investigators to be baptized, and all 3 accepted!! Yay!!! Ben I think actually accepted last week. She's doing AWESOME!!! She wants to go to church but is having a hard time going 'cause she has school until 1PM.... :( But she totally accepted the Sabbath Day and is going to stop working on Sundays and prepare food on Saturday to bring to school so she doesn't have to buy food on Sundays!! She's awesome. I know that if she keeps the Sabbath to the best of her abilities, the Lord will bless her even more and she will find a way to go to church. 

This is the kitty wad that we have to pass to get to the Land of Nephi.
I call it the kitty wad 'cause there always seems to be cats around it.
 I've always wanted to go inside, but wasn't sure if that was allowed.
 Last P-Day we asked if we could and they let us in!!!!
I drew and took pictures for a good hour and a half. :DD

The next dater is My Heart! We taught him about baptism and the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and he still knows that he can't feel the Holy Ghost if he works all day in a business with people drinking alcohol and smoking and gambling. We asked if he would be baptized, and he just sat there for a bit... thinking really hard! And then he looked at us and said: "Day. ...Day! DAY!!!" (Yes, yes, YES!!) When he was thinking he was trying to decide if he could really close the business in order to be baptized, 'cause he knows he has to change his life in order to be baptized and follow Christ!! SO AWESOME!! Too bad he has school until 1PM too. >:( 

The last is the girl we met at the Thai khanom activity who just reads the Book of Mormon like a boss! She's almost done with 2 Nephi already!!!! We've only taught her twice!! She wants to be baptized, but she ALSO has school on Sundays!!!!! GRRRR Thailand is way hard for church, 'cause it isn't a Christian country and so they literally have no concept of a weekend or setting aside a day of the week for rest. Wayyyyy annoying.

A Sister in my branch got her mission call!!!!! She's going to CANADA!!!!!! She went to school in America for a few years so she's wayyyyyyy good at English. She's amazing. She's taught with us a couple times before and she explains things WAY better than we do. She'll do great.

This week we discovered a park near Lek's house! It's so cool! Basically the paths are surrounded by water on each side and they're twisty and go over random tall hills and under bridges and there's big trees and a play structure- so awesome. Well, one day Sis Reedy and I were walking around, talking to random people, doin' what missionaries do when at one point Sis Reedy was like, "OH MY GOSH SIS THERE IS AN ALLIGATOR HERE." I was like, "WHAT?!" And whipped around. There wasn't an alligator, but there was a HUUUUUGE water monitor lizard!!! It was just tromping around this park! Turns out there's 5 or 6 of them that live there! ahahahha! They're a protected species or something... and they just hang out there! We asked someone of they were friendly, and he was like, "hahahhaha Nope."

We've had lots of fun at the park. We've fed catfish, played botchi ball with random dudes, watched some old guys play chess, play a Thai version of jump rope with some girls. Way fun! One time as we were leaving the park a crazy guy on a bike stopped next to us and was like, "I WANT A PRAKHAMPII (scriptures). I'M INTERESTED. We gave him a Book of Mormon and he was like, "Thanks! ......Bye!" And then took off. I hope he likes it!

No worries, just a giant wad
 in a neighborhood that an LA lives in.

We met another crazy lady near Ben's apartment. She speaks wayyyy good English, and keeps telling us she's a member. But every one says she's a compulsive liar, so we're not sure if we believe her... But there was one day that she came running up to us and she had a Liahona..... so now we're wayyyyyy confused! She harasses Ben and Brother Te who we take to go teach Ben. :S One time Ben left us at the spot we were teaching to go get Te and after a few minutes they came RUNNNNING in laughing hysterically!! I guess the lady was following Ben and when she found Te she just whispered "run" and they booked it away! hahahahah He felt SOOOO bad! And was pretty confused. haha Our district leader wants us to teach the lady.... 'cause I guess he taught and baptized a crazy lady once, and after she was baptized she turned normal??? My problem is that teaching crazy people is SCARY! You never know what they're gonna do! And she lives so close to us.... Errrhhhhhh Sketchy.

Yesterday was ridiculously hot. I do not even want to know how hot it was. All I know is that we ran out of water and we biked alllllllllllllll the way to Laksi and back TWICE. I about died. haha Today the weather is amazing! It's probably going to rain, but it's pretty cool! Yayyy. :)

Well, that's all I have for this week. Still doing great! Love Don Mueang! I don't want to leave. :(

Love

Sister Zaugg

Two months!

Dogs sitting in front of 7/11
 BTW For Thailand being OBSESSED with 7/11,
the date 7/11 passed pretty quietly...

The thing about serving in Thailand is that you have to be keenly aware of how long you've been here, 'cause eeeeeveryone and their gramma asks you about it! When I'm out contacting I basically have the same conversation like, 20 times. It usually goes something like this:

Me: "Hey! How are?"

Random Person: "Good...?"

Me: "What are you doing/have you been selling well today/how long have you lived here?"

Random Person: "-Response- Phuud Thai Geng (You speak Thai well).

Me: "Thanks! It's a blessing from God!"

Random Person: "How long have you been here?"

Me: "2 months."

Random Person: "WHAT?????"

Yup. Every time. And it usually ends like this: 

Random Person: "Thug sadsanaa tham hay thug khon be khon dii. (Every religion teaches us to be good, AKA I'm not interested).

Me: "OK, Byyye!"

Yup. haha

We're in taxis a looooot.

Anyway, this week was wonderfulllllll! The District Presidency has started a huge campaign to get the members motivated to work better, the leaders to work better, and the missionaries to work better in order to get out of this slump we're in. 

To put it in the words of one of my Zone Leaders: "We're so ridiculously close to being a stake it's disgusting."

And it's TRUE!!! We need something like, 30 more active Melchizedek Priesthood holders in the District before it becomes a stake. SOOOO CLOSE. Every one is getting training, leaders are pushing for more unity in the branches (ie focusing on visiting/home teaching and ward activities), missionaries are putting more emphasis on LA families that have Melchizedek Priesthood holders, etc. Great things are about to happen in Zion's Fist, and I'm excited to be a part of the work here!

Sister Reedy and I have really seemed to come out of a really tough place and are just seeing tons of miracles! We had 92 people at church yesterday!!!! From an average of 60 the whole time we've been here!! We have 7 investigators and are seeing some progression in our LAs that we work with. It's so amazing seeing the changes people are making in their lives. :)

 Taking the youth dan jonesing!
Also, that's one of my zone leaders
taking a really huge awkward step.

On Saturday there was a big youth activity for those who are thinking of being missionaries. We took them Dan Jonesing and they were GREAT!!! Totally fearless. All I really had to do was start the conversation (because that's always the scariest/ most awkward part) and ask some questions to make their message a little more relevant to the person- they did the rest!! We gave away 4 Book of Mormons and got 5 numbers. Thailand has got some great youth, I'm excited for them to be missionaries!

This week I ate some gross things. haha

Thing 1) I've been getting pretty sick of eating the same 6 dishes over and over again, so one day we went to our usual place and I just looked at the menu on the wall and just picked something random: "Pad nay kay." It ended up being a squid/chicken liver stir fry that was suuuuuper spicy. Mmmmmmmmm. I ate as much as I could, but I had to buy some chocolate afterwards to make me feel better. LOL Not doing that again.

Thing 2) One day we were biking home from a new investigator's house in an area that we hadn't really explored yet. We passed this gui diaw (it's like fancy top ramen) place that had some nice looking people there. After a couple minutes Sis Reedy slammed on the brakes and was like, "WE GOTTA GO BACK!" So we went back and talked to them for a bit. Turns out they'd just opened their ran and the lady and son are from burma, but the dad is from Thailand... we're actually not sure if they're a family or not.... ANYWAY, they were tooootally not interested, so we left, but later Sis Reedy and I both talked about how when we talked to them we both felt strongly about them and that we needed to keep up with them. Sooooo, a few days later we were out visiting that investigator and were leaving to eat dinner. Sis Reedy was like, "Hey, let's eat at that gui diaw place." Well, turns out it's a FISH gui diaw place! I'm all for fish, but not when it comes from Bangkok. I've seen people fishing out of the khlong, and they do weird things with fish and I was nooooot happy about it. But Sis Reedy made us eat it so we could talk to the people there! Eughhhhh I really related to the quote: "What will you sacrifice to save the souls of others? What pains will you endure? What discomforts? Is their eternal salvation not more important than your temporal desires?" Yup. My temporal desires were not met that day. They were still not interested and actually pretty suspicious of us. I asked the guy why he decided to open the ran, and he was like, "What, are you gonna say that it was God that made me decide?" And I just laughed and was like, "Nooooo, I was just wondering!" hahahaha He was super confused. GOOD. We'll get them somehow.

 FOR THAILAND!! These two were so goooooood!

Hey, remember that picture I sent of the neighborhood built over the khlong? We have an LA that lives there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WE WENT THERE!! It was so cool! I'm for sure taking video and pictures next time I go, because I need to remember it for the rest of my life. Looove it! Her husband isn't a member. He used to be a monk, but now he's up to learning the Gospel so we're gonna be teaching him and their granddaughter! Whoop whoop!

Loved this cute garden outside of someone's house!

The other day we were getting ready to go out contacting and it just started POURING. I just looked at Sister Reedy and said, "Well, this is how the Elders found Sister Bu! Let's go!" So we went out in the rain to the Land of Nephi. We took cover in this lady's house/ran. We talked about life, and rain, and a bit about missionary work. She was like, "Yeah! Come back and hang out!" And Sis Reedy was like, "Can we come back and teach you?" And then she was like, "Ohhh.. well... you know, I'm so busyyyy." We were just like. :I Haha but then when I was about to get up, Sis Reedy was like, "I'm gonna teach her about prayer." Oookay! I asked the lady, "Hey, have you ever wanted to talk to God?" And she was like, "Yeah!" So we taught her about prayer, and she was way interested and said she'd do it! Sis Reedy and I sang on the way home. :)

 One of the girls I took dan jonesing,
she helped us teach MyHeart! She is amazing.
She's just over a year old in the church!
 Also! My hair and a skirt that an LA gave
to me that every one loves.

MyHeart is doing GREAT! He just loves coming to the church, everyone is friendly to him, he feels good, turns out one of the members in our ward is his friend from when they went to the same Baptist church! Whhaaaat? Yesterday we taught about repentance. We found out that he doesn't drink even though he sells it at his snooker ran. We were all like... "Can you get baptized if you sell alcohol.....? We're not sure!" I told him to ask God, and he was like, "I know the answer. It's no." So we read 1 Nephi 3:7, which he related to way well. We asked if he thought God would provide a way to help him stop selling alcohol, and he said, "Yeah, He will!" So we committed him to doing it and he said he would! This guy is SO READY. Sis Reedy and I can just see him being a missionary. All the missionaries in our zone were at the church 'cause we were having zone training and he was just there playing frisbee with them having a grande 'ol time. I'm so excited for him. :DDD

 Heheheh

Hmmmm... Well, my bike broke this week. :( I changed the gears and it just broke. I'm dropping off my bike at a bike shop today so hopefully that'll get worked out.....

Life is good in Don Mueang! As I get further into this transfer, the more I want to stay! This area is amazing. I want to stay here for a loooooong time! In the words of Sis Reedy: "Heaven on Earth in a weird way."

Love ya'll!

Sister Zaugg

 

Here I Begin Transfer 2 :)

(This is Sister Zaugg's letter from 7/15 that didn't go through last week)

Our house is falling apart, no big deal.

Helllloooooo! So this week marks the beginning of transfer two! Even though Sister Reedy and I are staying in Don Muang for this transfer, we were invited to the transfer meeting because transfers always take place at the Chaengwatthana building (where we have church). We were hoping to get some training on English class and sharing the Gospel through family history, but as it happened the English meeting started earlier than we expected so we missed most of it, and we had to leave for an appointment before the actual transfer meeting ended so we didn't even get to the other training. :( However, transfers was sooooo much fun! Transfers are 6 weeks long here. At the end of each transfer all the people who are told to come to transfers meeting pack up their stuff and come to Bangkok to get their new areas and companions (and packages!). Sister Ng and Elder Wahl were there!! But not because they're changing areas. Their trainers are dying! They've already finished their missions. I can't even imagine killing my trainer! That would be hard. Luckily Sister Reedy is still very young in the mission. :)

Anyway. Transfer meetings in Thailand are way fun. Pres Senior was really stressing having zone pride and having friendly competition between the zones, so my zone leaders asked me to make a logo for the zone that they could put on a flag. They made little flags for every one in the zone. We're called 'Zion's Fist'. : ) We all sat in ranks according to our Zones and then sectioned off into Districts and companionships. Whenever someone got called to serve in our zone one of the Elders would shout, "Hip hip!" And we would all yell, "Huzzah!!" and wave our flags. Also- somehow Elder Appleyard (zone leader) convinced SIster Sahagun to bake an apple pie. The zone leaders had it placed on a pedestal next to them with a fancy red cloth and stuck a flag in it. President Senior was really impressed. hahaha! He has been in country for 1 year now! We ate apple pie together to celebrate. :)

Anyway, it was way awesome to see my nccngs! I didn't get to talk to any of them cause we left early, but Sister Tilly is in my district! Sister Sahagun is training her!! Sister Sahagun JUST finished being trained and now SHE'S training! All of my nccngs are being trained by my Phiis, who have only been here for 12 weeks!!

I'm super scared now, because that means I might train in 6 weeks. o____o NOOOOOOOO. Ohhh boy. I mean.... I could proooobably do it, but there is a high likelihood that I would get myself and my greenie killed. Or lost. We most definitely would get lost. Eughhhhh

I try not to think about that.

So yeah! Transfers is just a big party. Pres Senior calls out the area, says, "Elder so-and-so!" - he pulls up a picture of that Elder - "You're serving with Elder so-and-so!" -pulls up another picture. And then the two elders run and give each other a big bear hug and run to their new zone while every one applauds. There wasn't a transfer meeting when I got here, so it was fun to go to this one!

Let's see... what else....

Earlier this week we had to leave our bikes in front of a Tesco Lotus (like a 7/11) over night, and when we went back the next morning to pick them up my helmet was ALLLLLL chewed up by a dog!!!!! I WAS SO MAD!!!! We took it to SIster Lek's house and disassembled it, and she sewed the straps together and then we reassembled it. It definitely isn't the same as before, but it works and I don't have to buy a new one!!! We were so grateful for Sis Lek. She always seems to be there to help our bike problems. :) But now I carry my helmet everywhere I go.

Wednesday was the best day ever!!! We had a great District Meeting the day before that was about using our agency to choose to be better missionaries and have more faith! Sister Reedy and I didn't talk about it together, but individually we just resolved to change and be more diligent. On Wednesday we were both praying for help and each other the whoooooole day! I was completely focused on the work the whole day, and we just felt like missionaries! We taught by the spirit, we saw the people we work with progress- God performed small miracles- it was amazing! We decided that it was possible to have every day be like that! And guess what! Thursday was just like the day before! It was AWESOME!! We were contacting in this area that we call the Land of Nephi. We call it that because we call our neighborhood that we live in Zarahemla, and in order to get to the Land of Nephi we have to bike through this road that is like.... super broken up and surrounded by tall grass and trash and dogs. We call it Desolation, herefore the land on the other side is called the Land of Nephi. :) Anyway.... we were contacting in the Land of Nephi, and getting rejected by every one! At the end we passed a house, that had two little poodles that like THREW themselves at the gate and were freaking out.... which happens at like every house that has a dog. We laughed and thought they were cute and kept walking, I was like, "Sorry doggies! We have to go find God's prepared people!" Sister Reedy laughed and then was like, "Wait.... what if that house has God's prepared people?" And I was like, "......OK." So we went back and talked to the lady who had just come out of here house. She was super happy to chat with us, she speaks English, and she made her daughter come out to talk to us so she could practice her English. They invited us in and we were trying to share the Book of Mormon, but the mom kept asking random questions that would take the discussion off track! Usually when that happens we just move on, cause they aren't interested, but that time we just kept pushing for some reason. The mom had to leave the room for a bit, and after she'd gone, the daughter turned to us and said, "Actually, I'm really interested in your message. My family is Buddhist but it doesn't do anything for us, there's no point to it. I want to know if Christianity would do anything for us, but I'm afraid to change and then have family relations be awkward only to find out Christianity doesn't have a point either!" So we taught her that there's a way to test Christianity out and about prayer and she is really sincere about learning about Christ! 

Miracles I tell ya. :,)

Unfortunately the rest of the week went... not so great. It seems like the adversary really picked up his pace. :( Mali basically told us that she can't change, but we realized that that's because she doesn't have a testimony of the Book of Mormon yet, so we need to repent and help her gain a testimony of the Book of Mormon and Christ. We aren't giving up yet.

We've been handed a curve ball right now now, but I know that if we push through it with faith, we'll see miracles!!

Love ya!

Sister Zaugg