Life is like a roller coaster...

This week was definitely rougher than other weeks. It started out with food poisoning on Sunday night which didn't get all the way better until Thursday, and then just..... lots of other stuff. haha Contacting was really rough this week. We would spend hours contacting and just got rejected the whoooooole time! We didn't find as many people this week as we're used to. Plus we were really praying and hoping that one of our investigators would be baptized this week but none of them are there yet. We've just been calling this week the trial of our faith. It's really no big deal. We still saw a lot of good things and we still have progressing investigators so we're not too bummed. Mostly we're pumped to double our faith and watch the miracles roll in!

I think the best contacting story from this week is from Friday. We were outside our second favorite 7/11 contacting for a long time. We didn't get a single person to stop and listen! We were getting pretty frustrated so we decided to take a half time break and get an icecream cone from McDonalds. As we were walking up to the front of the mall we found ourselves in this animal and plant..... wonderland. SO. CONFUSED. There were so many animals.... and so many mushrooms and random plants just scattered around the store front! The best part though: GOATS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There was a big pen full of sheep and goat babies!!!!!!! And guess what. They were wearing hats. I think I died and came back to life like 10 times. I. Love. Goats. There were also birds and puppies. So many puppies. IT WAS TERRIBLE!!!!!!!! We just had to run to the Mcdonalds and shield our eyes before we could get sucked in. I did take some pictures of the goats, though. >_>

But that actually isn't the point of this story, I promise.

After the goat/icecream fiasco we ran back to the 7/11 to continue contacting. We kept getting rejected, and at one point a guard from the mall approached Sis Adams. We were both like, "Oh no! He's gonna tell us to get lost!" Which doesn't make sense because there were like a million other people around trying to sell stuff but anyway he walks up to Sis Adams and points at the picture of baptism in her hand and is like, "What is that?" And she's like, I'll just play along! And starts teaching him about it. And then he's like, "Wait- how do I do this?" He accepted a date for baptism and we're gonna teach him this week! Pretty cool. 

In other cool news: this week has been the week of many languages. On Wednesday we went on switch offs with the sisters in Bangkok West zone. There's only two companionships over there so the sister training leader asked if we would participate in their switch off to add more diversity. So I went to Asoke with Sister Narayanan, who serves in the international ward, and Sis Adams stayed in Pangna. It was kind of a tender mercy, because I've always wanted to serve in Asoke, and I'm pretty sure that I won't ever get the opportunity (pretty much because President Senior basically told me that this is my last transfer in Bangkok.... AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH), and it was way fun to get to be there for a day!! Sis Narayanan and I taught soooo many people! We taught a man from Srilanka who doesn't really speak English so we had to have a translator. We taught a family from India who speak Tamul (Sis Narayanan is from India so she spoke Tamul with them. I smiled and looked pretty and bore my testimony a few times). They are refugees because of a war or something like that, and they just got approved to move to the states!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was so happy for them. I think I almost cried like 3 times. After that we taught a man from Africa who reads the scriptures in French, and then taught a girl from America who's here teaching English. It was so much fun!!!!!!!!!!

While I was teaching all these amazing people, Sis Adams got to teach our deaf friend! It went really well, and we taught him again on Saturday. He's awesome! Teaching is really hard, but he has a lot of faith. We're gonna be fluent in Thai Sign Language by the time we're done here in Pangna. lol

But that's not all! On Sunday one of the members brought her teacher from China to church. We taught her in a weird combination of Chinese, English, and Thai. hahahahah We didn't have any pamphlets in Chinese so we didn't know how to teach her to pray... so the member just kind of made it up.... Hhahaa It was so cool. 

This week was so awesome! I got to meet so many kinds of people. I've had so many opportunities to experience so many different cultures here in Thailand. I've heard a lot of different languages. I think what strikes me the most is that no matter what culture, tongue, or people I've seen, the Gospel fits there. The Gospel isn't limited to just one group of people. It's all-encompassing. It's true for everyone. And no matter what language is being used in a lesson, I've found that really, we all speak the same language; we speak the language of the Spirit. The Spirit carries our message past the language barriers and bears witness to the hearts of the people who we teach, whether they speak Chinese, Tamul or sign language that Jesus Christ is their Savior. Amazing!

I know that this is the work of the Lord. Great things are happening here in Thailand, even if sometimes we have a week of trial. 

Love you all!

Sister Zaugg