Hey allllll

[Editor's note: All of the names that come across as gobbledy-gook in the email, I am assuming are written in Thai. Normally I try to replace them with the actual names, but this time I didn't have a chance to ask her what they were and couldn't figure it out from the email context.]

Another great week in ÊоҹÊÙ§!

First things first: àºÃÕéÂÇ was baptized!! That's a fun story. So on Saturday she was interviewed and passed. She was excited and super ready! Her only concern was that next month she's likely moving to this teeny little town out on the border of Laos. Whaaaaaaaaaaaat? Luckily there's a branch out there so she'll be fine, but STILL. She just now told us?? hahahahah Another strange thing about Thai people is that they move A LOT. And really suddenly. One day you'll visit an investigator or member, and the next call them only to find out that they've suddenly disappeared to a different province without telling anyone. I don't understand. haha Anyway, so we went home for the night, but got a call from àºÃÕéÂÇ. She was starting to get really nervous, 'cause she has a friend who joined some Christian church a while a go but went back to Buddhism soon afterwards, so she was getting scared that maybe she would do that and wanted to know what the consequences of it was. We could only tell her to remember why she wants to be baptized and to pray. Sunday morning we were SO NERVOUS! We couldn't even talk to each other walking to church. BUT. She came! She came into the church wearing a white eye patch over her left eye. We were like, "Uhhhh.... what happened?" She was like, "This morning I cut my eye with my finger nail." What? So basically her eye was hurting pretty bad, and she left after the second hour to go see a doctor for a bit. She left without telling us, so we called her and were like, "Uhhh... are you coming back?" And she was like, "Yeah, hold on!" So she came back just in time for the baptism.So then she got baptized! But she wouldn't bend her knees... so she had to get baptized 4 times before she finally went under all the way. After the end of the service she left pretty quickly cause her eye was hurting so badly. Basically it was a disaster. Sis Hughes and I were so.... confused. hahaha Pretty much all of Hell combined against this girl, but she still did it! Oh it was so strange. We knew that àºÃÕéÂÇ was a strange person, but every time we see her she just gets stranger. We've concluded that she's the Thai, female version of Eugene from Hey! Arnold. You know, the one that's always having terrible stuff happen to him? Yeah. But she was so ready to be baptized. She knows it's all true, and always talks about how she's excited to be cleansed from her sins. Only thing is we can't get a hold of her now, so we're pretty much freaking out.  Bahhhhhhh o_o

Bro Boss with a ton of cardboard
on his bike outside of the church.

So besides having the most bizarre and stressful baptism ever, Sunday was a really good day! We got 6 investigators to church! That's the most I've ever had. Our goal is to get 10+ like the elders do by the end of the transfer. One of those investigators was a girl named Dear. She's getting baptized on the 15th of November. She's 17 and kids under 18 years old have to come to church 4 weeks in a row before they can get baptized, but the girl could have been baptized last week, she's SO ready! Last Wednesday after we taught her, she wanted to keep learning so she went to the adult institute class with Jeep, my recent convert. hahahah She's soooo cute!





After teaching Dear on Sunday, we went contacting. We ran into Khaw, the kid that got baptized my first week here. He was in his white shirt, slacks and tie with a baptism card in hand out contacting!! It was SO cute! We were like, "Hey! We're going to the market! You wanna go too?" He was like, "YEAH! Let me tell the Elders first." lolol Next to that giant wad that we got lost in there's a huge market on the weekends. We've never gone contacting there so we decided to try it out. It was fun! I found one girl who said she would be baptized and is going to meet with us tomorrow. Yay!

On Wednesday we made plans with the Bishop's wife to teach her how to make some American food. Last week we took her to the farang grocery store and told her everything she needed to buy. So on Wednesday she brought all the stuff excited for cheese. :/

 The lady with the knives is the elders' investigator...

We taught her (and pretty much all the other investigators and members who were at the church as well) how to make mashed potatoes and funeral potatoes. While we were prepping the potatoes an investigator showed up to be taught so we were like, "Ok, Sister Kew, only boil 6 of these potatoes, OK?" She said, "OK!" So we went and taught the investigator. 15 minutes later we came back and found that she'd thrown ALL but 3 of the potatoes into boil. We were like, "Sister KEW!! We told you only to put 6 in!" She just laughed and was like, "iiiiii dunnoooooooooooooo!"

So after everything was finished/baking, we went to go teach  àºÃÕéÂÇ. We came back to the kitchen and found that every one had eaten it all already except for 2 plates that were set aside for us. On the plates was a pile of funeral potatoes heaped over mashed potatoes soaked in gravy. I lost it. I was like, "SISTER KEW!! What did you?????" She just laughed and was like, "iiiiiiii dunoooooooooooooooooo!" Apparently she served it like that to EVERY ONE. Funny thing, they LOVED it. LOL I guess they didn't know any different. It actually tasted pretty good. hahaahhaha 

 Kitty cafe!

That same day Sis Hughes and I discovered that a new cat cafe had opened close to our home. A cat cafe is a cafe that has a million kitties hanging out that you can play with while you eat. We resolved to eat there one day. Well, that one day turned out to be Thursday afternoon. We had finished eating lunch at our usual place and had 15 minutes left before it was time to get to work. Usually we would just go work the extra 15 minutes, but all of a sudden that kitty cafe popped into my mind and I was like, "Sister. We need to go there." So we went and got chocolate shakes there. It. Was. Amazing. She had like, 10 cats hanging out there. We were like, "Hey do you have more cats?" She was like, "Yeah. 8 more in the back! You wanna see?" LOL We actually are going back there to teach her 'cause she's interested. So awesome!

Sis Hughes forgot how to dismount a bike

This week had a small miracle in that Sis Hughes decided to try riding her bike! It's been a long time, but she gave it a go! And her knees didn't hurt!!!! It was way exciting. I missed my bike. 


On Friday it was THANKSGIVING TACO NIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We all ate dinner at the family who has the french grandkids' house. It was so. Delicious. I miss Mexican food!!!

On Saturday we went out to Asoke again for choir practice. That was fun. We had to rush back to ÊоҹÊÙ§ for the Elders' baptism, so we bought food from a cart. Before getting on the sky rail. We had one of those moments where we were in downtown bangkok, sitting on the steps of a police box, eating fried chicken and sticky rice and weren't quite sure why or how we got there. That happens occasionally. It's fine, you just shrug it off and sink deeper into the weirdness that's missionary life in Thailand.

So yeah! Besides feeling majorly stressed out over  àºÃÕéÂÇ, things are going fantabulously! Can't believe this transfer only has 3 more weeks left. Goes by quick!

Sis Zaugg

Hi!

Helloooooo everyone!

So I'm going to start by saying that of all the weeks that I've spent in Thailand, this was the most bizarre of them all. I'm a little speechless, actually. Sis Hughes and I were discussing it, and we've concluded that everyone in Thailand has the crazies. And when I say everyone, I mean EVERYONE. There is not a single sane person here. It must be the water. 

The scary thing about it all is that we have no way of knowing if we're going crazy too or not! Crazy people never think that they're crazy, and there's noone sane around here to judge ourselves off of.... so we could be absolutely nuts and we would never know it!

festival!

Speaking of water, this last Sunday was a big holiday. I can't remember the name of it for the life of me, but basically at night everyone gathers at a pond or the klong (the sewer river) with adorable little plant boats that have candles and incense attached to them and send them off in the water as an apology to the water for making it so gross. hahahahahahahahah Sis Hughes and I bought one of the floaties shaped as a bird on Saturday and went to a pond with some new members and took some fun pictures! It was fun and there were lots of lights strung up on the trees and the lights on the water were pretty. :) Also, at the wat they were doing the giant floating lanterns. It took all of Sis Hughes and my energy to not just stand in the middle of the street and stare into the sky!

 A beautiful companionship, I know.

putting it in the water!

So anyway, remember how I said that missionary work here is changing? Sis Hughes and I really jumped into it and on Monday we went contacting crazy! This week we found 11 new investigators, 5 of which accepted dates for baptism! WHOA. Of course, only a few of those actually stuck. Basically this new method is just sifting through people. The people who are prepared of the Lord are out there. We just have to go out and find them. We go out and talk to as many people as we can and the Lord puts the ones who are ready in our paths. :) 

 We usually eat at our favorite
 place down the street,
which is nice and clean
 and has all kinds of food.
Anything you could ever want!

The investigator who is the most prepared was one that we found on Monday night. We were out talking to people about baptism and trying to get them to go on a tour of the church. We were out in the street market in our neighborhood. We had just taken a guy to the church who wasn't interested, and were looking for the next one. Sis Hughes noticed a girl about to buy some food, and normally we don't talk to people who are busy 'cause they normally won't pay attention anyway if we talk to them but Sis Hughes was like, "I GOTTA TALK TO THIS GIRL!!!" So she did and was like, "hey baptism cleans you from sin!" and the girl was like, "dude, I've got a lot of sin" and we were like, ".....you wanna go to the church with us?" and she did! we gave her a tour of the church. At one point we were just standing in front of a painting of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. We explained to her that it was there that Christ took upon Himself her pains and sins. It was really powerful. And then we showed her the baptismal font and were like, "In two weeks you'll be in there!" She was way excited and we've met with her almost every day since then! Her name is  Briaw, (which means sour) and she's 19 and the sweetest thing. She really wants to be cleaned from her past mistakes and be a better person. It's been such a blessing to watch her grow in just the last week that I've known her, and to see the miracle of the atonement work in her life. What a privilege to be a part of this great and sacred work. I have the opportunity to be a bearer of a message of healing and peace.  Wow. It's also been such a blessing to see that when we do it the Lord's way... no matter how weird it sounds, He makes it happen. Before I just couldn't believe that you could find anyone who might want to be baptized by simply walking up to them on the street and saying: "Hey, baptism cleans you from sin. Do you want to be baptized in 2 weeks?" But it's happened time and time again. The Lord works in simple, marvelous ways. Us humans like to make it more complicated... and that's why He's in charge and not us. :)

Contacting at a bus stop.

One of the other daters we got (who is a little iffy, we're still not sure if we're going to keep teaching her or not) was a girl we met in the park last Saturday. She accepted a date and said we could go to her house another day. So one day we took a song thew to the park that we met her at and called her and were like, "Where do you live??" She told us... but we had no idea where that was. So we asked a motorcycle taxi man. 

Let me tell you about motorcycle taxi drivers. They are the strangest group of social outcasts. They're like the gypsies of Thailand. I swear, they know the deepest, darkest secrets of the country. For the most part they're harmless, but we usually try to avoid them anyway. We only dare to talk to them when we have to find somewhere we've never been to, 'cause they'll know where it is. So we walked over to one of their little nests and asked for directions. A man wearing eyeliner told us half of the directions and said to ask the next group of taxi drivers when we got there. So that's what we did. We just walked from nest to nest until we got to the right neighborhood. It was such a cute little neighborhood! Very Asian. There was only one 7/11 for the whole area, too. It was shocking.

walking... walking.... more walking....

So we found the girl's house, and she said she wanted to be baptized! Her cousin was listening in on the lesson on the other side of the big open area we were sitting in at their house. We invited her over but she was too shy to go. So the next day we went over and the girl wasn't there and wasn't answering her phone, but her cousin was! She seemed pretty sad that we were gonna go so we asked her if she wanted us to teach her. She gave a sheepish, "Yes :>" hahahaha So we taught her and it turns out she's wayyyyyyyyyyy interested and read the pamphlet we'd left and really wants to go to church and be baptized. 

Now, during the lesson out of the corner of my eye I saw someone standing in the doorway outside the house. I looked, and there was a man wearing a women's black and pink striped, sleeveless turtleneck, skinny jeans that didn't cover his woman's underwear, and bright pink lipstick, watching and listening intently. When Sis Hughes looked over her waied us and slowly sat down and continued to listen. We were both like, "uhhhhhh........... ok." and ignored him. As we were leaving he was like, "you raw you raw you raw you raw" and kept doing that catholic thing where you touch your forehead. He asked us for a book and said he knew someone who wanted to learn and then motioned us to follow him. He crossed the little street and went into his dumpy little house. For some reason we both decided walk over and see who this person was who he said was interested. We stood outside of his gate, but he was the only person in his house (except for a random foot poking out behind a wall in the back). He was sitting in the doorway and waied us for a really long time. He motioned again to come in but we were like, "weeeee have to go......" and left pretty quickly. Weirdo.

The next day we went to see Joy, the girl, but she wasn't home yet so we were waiting for her when the same cross-dresser came out. He was wearing boy clothing this time, but still had pink lipstick on and now had sparkly blue nail polish and a cup of iced coffee or something. He really wanted us to teach him but we were too busy ignoring him and trying to call a member. At one point he grabbed my arm with a cold, slimy hand (ewwww) so we gave him a pamphlet to try to appease him. He got super excited and squeezed his cup pretty hard. We both were really scared that he was gonna throw his drink at us! hahaha but instead he extended his hand for a handshake. auuughhhhh I was super hesitant, but i decided if it was gonna make him go away, OK. 

So I'm not really sure what happened, but all of a sudden there were two pink lips coming straight for my face!!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH NO I was only saved by my super-missionary reflexes and somehow was able to dodge it. Sis Hughes and I were both really shocked. After that he shook her hand, looked like he was gonna try it again, thought better of it and left. 

 Taking Joy to the church
(after almost getting kissed by a cross dresser)

We just stood there for a second. In my absolute horror I decided to try calling the member again, but on the phone Sis Hughes just died on our investigators porch, laughing. IT WAS TERRIBLE!!!!!!!!!!!!! The member was super confused. I was like, "Sis Hughes. This isn't fun anymore. I want ice cream." So we walked alllllll the way to the only 7/11 in the area and bought ice cream. 

So, I almost had my first kiss with a Thai cross dresser. No big deal. People here are crazy.

puppy trying to bite me

That same day we decided to go visit a member. The Bishop's wife for some reason ended up taking us there. We thought she was saying that this member owned a laundromat, but when we got there we quickly realized that we understood wrong. She has a dog grooming place, and there were a MILLION dogs and a fox just wreaking havoc in her little shop. Yes, there was a fennec fox there.

heheh

There was a chihuahua with a lazy eye wearing a duck onesie, a poodle with purple ears, a Pomeranian puppy!!!!!!!, a bull dog, and a husky whose hind legs were absolutely useless and was wearing a diaper. The husky would just drag itself around and looked absolutely ridiculous. it was sooooooooooooooooo funny!

 husky in a diaper

Putting on bug spray before leaving the house.

Also, this week we went to go see Sister Oi, the member who did my nails that one time. We decided to try a van instead of a taxi to save money.... except the van dropped us at some random market out in the middle of nowhere and we had no idea where we were. There were no buses, no song thews, no taxis, nothing. EXCEPT for these special versions of the motorcycle taxi drivers. They were kinda like tuk tuks, and had a covered bench attached to the motorcycle. Soooo we had to take one of those to the member's house. We didn't really know what else to do. hahahaha So now we know not to take the van to Sis Oi's house again.

Sis Oi and her mom literally have no money right now. For the past month they've been living off of the random change that the Lord puts in their path and the kindness of their neighbors. We've been having Sis Oi focus on her blessings and having patience. This week she said that her neighbor has work for her to do and it pays enough to have food! So that was a small miracle. :) She did my nails again, and they are wild. Literally. They have tiger stripes, red flowers and LOTS of sparkles. hahahah It's a fun way to serve Sis Oi who is lonely and sad and loves to do nails.

Companion Study!

Sooooo yeah. That was my week.  Good things are happening! And weird things. Sis Hughes and I laugh really hard every day. It's fun. :) 

Love being a missionary!

Sis Zaugg

Sister Zaugg's Companion's Blog and another picture....

This is a link to Sister Zaugg's companion, Sister Hughes', blog, another perspective of Sister Zaugg's mission in Thailand.

http://sistersydneyhughes.blogspot.com/

Also, somehow this picture didn't make it into her last blog post:

Me and Sis Carter (Sis Yim's trainee) on an elephant. The elephant guy was way surprised to hear that the first time I'd ridden an elephant was in Oregon (well, maybe he was mostly surprised that I was talking to him in Thai) haha

Helllloooooooooo!!!!

There's something about Buddhism
 and red Fanta....

Hello everyone! For anyone wondering if the typhoon in the Philippines affected us, I didn't know there was typhoon until just now. It's been mostly dry here the past few weeks. It rained a couple days ago but it was pretty tame. That was actually a pretty fun experience. Sis Hughes and I were waiting for a teaching appointment at the church and were pretty hungry and so decided to go out to the neighborhood night market to find some grub. Luckily, I had been carrying an umbrella around all day and so when it started pouring we were well prepared. Others were not so fortunate and there were a lot of people coming off of buses and song thews who were caught in the rain. Sis Hughes and I took it as an opportunity to serve and chased down people and offered to walk them home in the rain! Unfortunately.... only two people could fit under the umbrella, so Sis Hughes sacrificed herself and got totally soaked. I think she secretly loved it. That day was really funny, actually. We were cold alllllllllllllllllllllllll day! The weather was super cool and we almost wanted to go home and get sweaters! Apparently it was in the 80's that day. Oh dear.

more of a glimpse of what thailand is like hahahaha

Some good things happened this week! We'll start off with last week's P-Day.

Me and a baby tiger!!!!!

All the sisters in the zone went to this magical place called the somutbrakarn crocodile farm. It. Was. Fantastic. Let me tell you about it. First we found ourselves in this little area with baby tigers, big tigers, baby leopards, and baby monkeys. All of which you could hold!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I held a baby tiger. ...It was more like a kid tiger, but it was still the most adorable thing on the planet. Unfortunately you don't get to hold them for long, just long enough to get a few photos, so I pet that thing as much as I could before they took it away! It was huge and soft, and it just made me so happy. :))))))))

This was the picture that they took and printed for me....
 It's not good quality here but it's my favorite
 of all of the ones that I had taken.

Then we went to the crocodile wrestling show. :O That was fun. It was basically a bunch of guys pushing around some crocodiles and sticking their hands and heads in their mouths. No big deal. 

 I almost hit myself with that fish head.

If you go past the crocodile show you end up on a big bridge... porch thing... that's above a swamp that has like... hundreds of crocodiles. They're HUGE!!! They were all sitting on the bank with their mouths hanging wide open. 'Cause there you could pay 20 Baht (less than a dollar) to get a giant fish head on a stick and feed the crocodiles! When crocodiles snap their jaws it makes a funny popping noise. It was way amusing. :) 

"Follow me and I will make ye fishers of men."

Next we went into the zoo portion of the farm and saw all kinds of fun animals. It wasn't very big, and soon we found ourselves at the elephant stadium. We had about 40 minutes before the elephant show and we weren't really sure what to do with ourselves.... but pretty soon we found the backside of the stadium where they had some elephants and a baby elephant chained to a wall. The interesting thing about this place was that even though it wasn't a very nice looking zoo... all the animals really liked people. I think it's cause in Thai culture you have to respect animals and treat them like you treat people. So as we were waving at them they all started reaching for us with their trunks!! haha 

We held hands with the baby elephant for awhile. After that the other sisters got bored and left, Sis Hughes and I were still playing with the baby elephant when the care taker came and took the baby elephant out for a drink and let us take pictures with him! We felt super special. :) 

At the end of the elephant show we all took pictures with the elephants and Sis Hughes and I ended the day with ice cream. It was awesome. If I stay here for another transfer I'm for sure taking my new companion there! Next time I wanna hold a baby leopard. :D

So that was really fun and took a really long time to explain. After P-Day was over the social media elders from Asoke came over and asked if they could film our companionship street contacting. That was fun! We felt really brave and talked to tons of people and even found some who were interested! None of them actually came through on the appointments we made, but it was still a good experience. There's some changes being made in the mission about the way we do missionary work. Pres Senior really likes the way that our district does missionary work (or more like, how the elders do it, we're still learning) and wants the whole mission to do it! Basically it consists of talking to as many people as possible about baptism and teaching faster, with more faith and confidence, and helping more people be baptized! We have a culture here where we tend to be really timid about baptism and thinking that it needs to take a long time for someone to be ready and a lot of us only expect to have maybe 1 baptism, if that, a month. Pres Senior is trying to get us to think like the missionaries in Brazil who just wait at the church and help every one who walks in learn the Gospel and receive the saving ordinances that they need! It's pretty exciting... but scary. haha Anyway, so the elders made some training videos on contacting and Sis Hughes and I had the privilege of being the only sisters in it. hahahahah Oops

On Tuesday we had a big Halloween party. At the end we had a pinata. I'm not sure where the pinata came from, but the elders showed up with one and it was the highlight of the evening.  Mostly because Elder Barfuss was the one who actually broke the pinata and he totally whacked Sister Benny, a recent convert in her 50's in the stomach. LOL She was fine, but she kept saying, "Elder B is so strong!!!!!"

Making som taam with sis naa

On Wednesday we got a call in the morning from an older sister who we visited last week. She said, "I'm gonna teach you how to make somtaam today OK!" So we rushed over to the church and made somtaam with Sister Naa! She's crazy and forced hand fed us fruit.

 

Waiting.... waiting.... waiting....

Later that day after visiting with the Relief Society President we waited at a bus stop in the middle of the wilderness foreverrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Another day we wanted to try exploring a bit and wanted to see what was on the other side of a wad that's across the street from the church. So we decided to cut through the wad. BAD IDEA. We were in there forever!!!!!! It was the wad that never ended!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We couldn't even proselyte cause you're not supposed to proselyte at religious spots. Oh, it was terrible. Eventually we popped out on the other side in a way ghetto area. We wandered around for a bit before turning back to the wad in shame. Wasn't the best idea in the world. 

Sister Becky, the American, somehow seems to be a super member missionary despite not being a khon thai, 'cause she gave us a referral last week! Her name is Mala, from Myanmar. She speaks about as much English as she speaks Thai. It's so-so. We taught her the Plan of Salvation and it was soooo good! She told us that she's always believed that there is a God and that He loves her. She prays to Him every day! She said one time her husband got thrown into jail of no fault of his own and she had no way to contact him and she didn't know what was gonna happen. He was there for a long time and one day she just went in her room and sobbed and prayed. As soon as she finished her prayer her phone rang and it was her husband saying he was coming home!! She said, "So I know that there is a God." We all cried and she committed to be baptized! Only problem is she and her husband are here to work to support their family, so she works on Sundays..... it will take a miracle to get her to be able to keep the Sabbath day holy. It's possible!

One of our other investigators, Jim, hasn't really been progressing. She's just super wishy washy about keeping commitments. Her son got baptized a few months ago, so we want them to be able to go to the temple together! She loves the church and is always there... but she never goes on Sunday and wont quit doing Buddhist stuff. We decided to meet with her one day and find our what's keeping her back. We learned that she actually does wanna be baptized and keep the commandments, she's just afraid that if she stops being Buddhist her husband will kick her out! We asked if we could teach her husband and she said yes! We both had a really good feeling that soon this whole family will be partakers of the gospel. And on Sunday Jim brought her dad to church! Yay!

Yesterday a less active member who we visited on Saturday came to church! When we saw her we asked if we could teach her mom and she said yes. So she brought her to church! It was awesome!!! We taught her after church. I think her mom is pretty unsure of it all.... but I dunno. We'll keep praying for her!

So yeah! A lot of good stuff is happening! Sis Hughes and I have really been pushing ourselves to talk to more people and be more bold. Today we're gonna try street contacting like the elders in our district do... it's intense. haha Kinda scared but good things will happen if we do it. Fight fight fight!

Love everyone!

Sis Zaugg

Happy Day!

I'm happy to say that Sis Hughes and I are feeling much better this week! haha I still have a bit of a cough, but it's really nothing bad at all. Phew! That's the second time that I've been sick on my mission... I hope it doesn't happen again!

So this was a really great week! On Wednesday we spent a few hours translating for Sister Becky at a primary presidency meeting. That was kinda fun, especially since we were at a member's house and she had these two little poodles who were actually clean and not disease-ridden! They were the biggest lap dogs I've ever seen. They spent every energy they had trying to get on my lap. Every now and again a poodle would leap onto my lap and then lose its balance and fall off, but eventually both dogs successfully made it on! Also, I would direct your attention to my feet. No, they are extremely dirty, that's just my tan line.

We went contacting with Sister Senior on Tuesday.
 It was wayyyyy fun!

This picture is of us searching for new investigators. 

On Thursday we decided to go find a member's house 'cause we're trying to go find and visit all of the members in the ward. The only problem with doing this is we're doing surprise visits because if you ask members to visit them they get really suspicious and will almost never let you go over. I think missionaries in the past have overused members and now they don't really trust the missionaries. Our goal right now is to just go find them and see how we can serve them and gain their trust again! So anyway, we found this member's address and hopped on a song thew to her neighborhood. 

And let me tell you: it was like walking into Wonderland! It was the NICEST neighborhood EVER!! It was lined with all kinds of Western restaurants, shops and super nice houses. It wasn't as dirty as other neighborhoods, cars were actually parked on the right side of the street, and we got to watch a Thai drama being filmed. ahahaha The crazy part was that it was a Thai nieghborhood...  we didn't see any white people! It was crazy! It was so perfect. Even though it was a million degrees outside and we were soaked in our own sweat, we were having such a good time walking around. At one point we found a cheesecake shop. Yup. We went in 'cause Sis Hughes really needed to use the bathroom, and so they directed us to a little potty between their shop and a massage place next door. While I was sitting outside, waiting, the massage guy next door came out to give me his business card. I was like, "...Thanks. Missionaries can't get massages! Do you wanna learn how to be cleaned from sins through Jesus Christ?" And he was like, "....Yeah!" Hahahahah We've gone to teach him once so far but he had some customers so we're gonna have to go back at a better time. We'll see where that goes. 

Anyways, across from those little shops is a huge pond. On the other side of that pond is the most AMAZING HOUSE. It's BLUE. And HUGE. And probably has a library/ballroom like the one in Beauty and the Beast. We've gone back to that neighborhood quite a few times now, and every time we get stuck in front of this house just staring at it.

No Swiss Restaurant is complete
without two cow statues.

Also, in that neighborhood is a Swiss Restaurant!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was too good to not pass up. 

yuuummmmmmmmmmm

We went there for lunch on Friday and ate STROGANOFF. It was so good. Except for the fact that it's been about 6 months since I've eaten beef and my body just didn't know what to do with it all. The next day Sis Hughes and I suffered from all kinds of terrible stomach pains. hahahahha But it was soooooooooooooooooooooooooo worth it.

On Friday we had to go back out to Asoke for another dentist appointment. Sis Hughes has another one in two weeks, and hopefully it'll be her last! However, we will miss getting to eat sandwiches for dinner. Mmmmmmmmmm :)

And now here is the best part of the email.

Are you ready?

.....

.....

.....

JEEP GOT BAPTIZED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yess! You heard me right!! I had my first baptism on Saturday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh it was so awesome. :)))))) Before her baptism she was worried 'cause she still hadn't told her mom that she was changing religions, but when she showed up on Saturday we were like, "So how did it go???" And she was like, "The only thing she said was to make sure I go to the wad first." lolllll So I guess it isn't a problem? Ohhhhh I'm so happy for Jeep. :)) 

Even if I didn't teach her from the beginning, it was such a pleasure to teach her the couple times that I did. She knew all along that she wanted to do this, she just didn't know how to recognize that she'd already gotten her answer. She's so sincere and faithful! She takes notes during lessons and goes home and writes questions down and then comes back for answers. I love that girl so much!

Her baptism was great! She got so excited that she jumped into the font with her shoes on. LOL She forgot to take them off. All of her friends that she's made in the church were there and a lot of people came to her baptism and it was just so happy and wonderful. :)))))) I was a lot more calm than I anticipated that I would be for my first baptism. I was just really happy for Jeep. I could see how firm and happy she was in her decision to be baptized. And then at church she got the gift of the holy ghost and every one kept welcoming her as a new member and you could tell that she was really excited. :DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD Ohhhh Happy Day! 

All of the new members and Pa Gua and Khiam!!
These two old guys are the best.
In Sacrament meeting I saw them wai each other
as is custom when greeting someone,
and then fist bump each other.

There were actually 5 baptisms this week, 'cause on Sunday there were 4 more baptisms!! It was craaaaaazy! 

So yeah!! The work in Saphaan Sung is awesome. Right now we're trying harder at talking to every one and be more bold and find more people who wanna be baptized! We need to find them quick if we're gonna make our goal for 20 baptisms as a district this transfer. But really.... I think we might make it. We're 6/20 right now. Yeahhhh B)

Love

Sis Zaugg