Sister Zaugg in Thailand: 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.