Transfer.... OVER???????????????????

Me and one of my favorite girls!!! Loog Mii!

Hey fam and friends! This transfer officially ended on Sunday. ....Whut. We have no idea what's gonna happen at transfer meeting! Am I moving? Is Sis Adams moving? Are we BOTH moving?? You never know with Pres Senior!

A lot happened this week! I'll try to sum it all up for you:

Last Monday we met and taught this guy named Pet (in Thai that means diamond). He's awesome!!!!!!!! He used to be a drug dealer but cleaned up his act and is interning at a hospital now. He's only 22 and is the littlest, sweetest guy on the planet. You would never guess that he used to be into the darker arts, minus the fact that he has some pretty gnarly scars on his arms and face.  But yeah. He really wants to be cleansed from his sins 'cause he feels pretty guilty. He came to church on Sunday and is getting baptized this coming Sunday! He's so awesome!!

A cute old lady wearing a helmet. haha
We contact here a lot!

On Wednesday we taught this one guy named Tee............ that was interesting. Basically he just wanted to prove why Buddhism is more true than Christianity. :I It ended up being a battle between him and the member we brought. I would try to wrap up the lesson by bearing testimony, but then he would ask a stupid question to combat it and then the member would argue back and then I'd try again and it would happen again! Ughhhhhhhhhh. Although, I did learn something from that lesson. So, Thii had a problem with the fact that he can't prove that God exists (Buddhism supposedly claims to not believe in a God... even though they still worship Gods....), and wouldn't accept that through the Book of Mormon and Bible, with prayer he can receive an answer from God that He's there. And he kept like... ranting about how Buddha had so much awesome power and all this weird stuff that he supposedly did, so we were like, "Well, how do you know that Buddha did all that if you've never seen him before?" and then he said that when Buddha was cremated his bones were pink, and so that's why he believes in Buddha. "Why do you believe that?"  "....Because two other religions after that accepted Buddha's teachings." ......OK. 

But then the member asked a question that really made me ponder. She asked, "And how does the knowledge that Buddha's bones were pink affect your life?" He just kinda sat there and couldn't really give a good answer.

We eat too much icecream...
but it makes us happyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.

And then I was filled with so much peace and joy as I testified: "I know by the power of the Holy Ghost that Jesus Christ was crucified and resurrected on the third day. This knowledge affects me because I know that someday I'll be resurrected, too, and will be able to live with my family forever!"

It was then that I realized just how true and important the Gospel is!!!!!!! Like, yeah, Thii learns good things from Buddhism.... but in the end it doesn't give him the peace, hope, joy, and comfort that the Gospel of Jesus Christ offers. The general goal of Buddhism is to live a good life so that when you die you'll disappear into nothingness. ???? NOOOO!!! The goal of life is to be good and be happy so that you can have happiness with the people you love for all eternity!!!! 

It was then that I truly came to understand the lyrics: "Oh sweet, the joy this sentence gives: I know that my Redeemer lives."

Sai made us dolls!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On Saturday we taught Sai about temples... and then afterwards she pulled out these two handmade dolls that she stitched herself!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They were us!!!!!!!!!!! She paid SO MUCH attention to details!!!!!!!!!! Like..... how we do our hair, what kind of clothes we like... everything!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH We died. They were so perfect. SHE is so perfect!!! She had scars on her fingers from making them! She said that she's completely changed after being baptized. That her family is weirded out at how much of a different person she is (they dunno that she got baptized... haha). She made those dolls over a course of 3 weeks to thank us for introducing her to the Gospel. :,) Sis Adams and I decided that if the only reason we came to Pangna was for Sai.... it was worth it. LOVE HER!!!!!!!

SO CUUUUTE!

Sunday was a day of miracles! We had 4 investigators at church! And then after church we decided to go find Noon ONE LAST TIME. We've tried twice now to no avail. BUT we called her mom and got her real address, so we set out to find our little lost sheep once more! We wandered around for SOOOOOOOO LOOOOOOOOONG. We supposedly found the right street.... but none of the house numbers were even close to hers! We walked back and forth asking every one and there dog for like an hour and a half. Finally we prayed... and this family came up to us and suggested to us that we try up back the buddhist temple.... so we thought, "Why the heck not??" so we walked up there, asked a bunch of drunk temple people who called Noon's mom, stuck us in a taxi and led the taxi literally 200 feet down the street to the right neighborhood. lol....... There we were urged to sit on a bench and wait for the mom to come out and bring us to her house. The whole neighborhood came out and showed us their babies, and this one super old lady sitting on a tiny stool with 3 teeth just yelled at us the whole time. Finally we thought to mention her last name and though whole village just ERUPTED. They were like, "OHHHHHHHHHHHHHH WHY DIDN'T YOU SAY SO BEFORE?!?!?!?" and they all rushed us like, 10 feet over to this old shack where a shirtless man with one arm came running out. We were like, "Uhhh... do you know Noon?" and he was like, "Yeah! NOON!" and Noon came out! WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT. WE FOUND HER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She's doing alright. Her dad has been way sick so she had to take him to the hospital like every day for the past 2 weeks, and she dropped her phone in the toilet so had no way to contact us.... haha......... So we will have to work on getting her back to church, but at least she's OK!! And we FOUND her!!!!!!!!!!! What a miracle!!

Sometimes we eat chicken
burgers, cheetos and candy bars
outside of 7/11 and,
chill with the soi dogs.

So that was my week. It was awesome!! Hope you all have a good week! It's possible that next Monday I'll be in Isaan which is the back country of Thailand!!

Sis Zaugg

I went back to Saphaansung!

Before you get confused, transfers isn't for another week. I just got to go on switch offs with my sister training leader who happens to be in Saphaansung! Sis Adams was wayyyyyyyyyy nervous, because she knew that she was gonna stay in Pangna with the sister that she was companions with in the MTC and was afraid that they would both get totally lost and not be able to do anything. But I knew that she's a way better missionary than she gives herself credit for, and she and Sis Holmes did GREAT! They saw a lot of miracles and Sis Adams really learned to trust herself and the Spirit. I say it was a successful switch off. :) As for me, it was pretty weird being back in Saphaansung. It didn't feel the same anymore! It was like... still Saphaansung... but.... it wasn't my area anymore. By the end of the day I was ready to get back to Pangna. I really felt peaceful with the fact that I moved to Pangna. I'm supposed to be here. I think that was a real blessing. I learned that where we are called is where we're supposed to be.

On Wednesday Sis Adams threw up AGAIN. So on Thursday we went to the hospital to get her checked out. That was an interesting experience. I think we were lucky and found a nice hospital. It was nice and clean and orderly. haha They said that she probably has an infection or something that's making her stomach really irritated so when she eats things that are hard to digest, her body just ejects it. They told her to avoid anything spicy or fried for awhile. That's great. That's just about all of Thai food. hahahaha ......Yeah. Eating has been an interesting activity lately. 

So this week something has been up with Noon, the girl who got baptized a long time ago. She was supposed to meet with us on Friday but never showed up! And no one can get ahold of her..... so on Saturday we decided to go find her at her house. We ended up going on the biggest goose chase EVER. We found a whole other part of Pangna that we didn't even know exists behind the big mall that we always contact at. We asked a bunch of motor taxi people for directions, none of them actually knew anything so we just wandered around for a really long time. At one point we had to go through a chinese temple to get to the other side of a road. It was way cool! It was SUPER colorful and ornate and was built over a pretty pond/stream. We had to walk through a hall which had big bells hanging on each side all the way down the whole stretch. Old people were walking through it with big sticks in their hands just whacking the bells as they passed them. It was REALLY loud, but REALLY cool. haha! Eventually we asked a postman who told us to take a song thew to the post office where they could look up her address for us. The song thew dropped us off at the post office... which was CLOSED. But the gate wasn't closed all the way over the glass doors, and we could see that there was a light on inside so we just crouched down and knocked on the glass a bunch until a guy came out. We asked him to help us and he said that we were at the WRONG POST OFFICE. But he was nice and called the right one for us and drew a map of where we should go to get to the general area of her house.

See, here's the problem. Thai addresses are the worst. Ever. They'll tell you which area you should go, but a lot of times you just have to know which neighborhood they live in, because the one they put down isn't actually the name of where they live... it's just what the locals know it as. So unless you ask the right person, it's almost impossible to find. Yesterday we got a member to take us in her truck to try to find Noon's house according to the map that the post office guy drew for us. Eventually we found the neighborhood.... but that was just half the battle. Next we had to find her house. Here's where it gets even MORE frustrating: Thai house numbers don't go in order. the house 75/2 can be between the houses 43/4 and 99/1. THERE IS NO ORDER HERE. We just had to wander around and ask people where the house was! Eventually we found it... but no one lives there anymore!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oooooiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii 

Soooo.... we're scratching our heads trying to figure out how to find this girl. We felt a little miffed that we wasted so much time trying to find a house that wasn't even right.... but in the end, we left the 99 to find the 1. We showed Heavenly Father how much we love her and  what we're willing to do to help her! I think we'll be able to get a hold of her. We just gotta keep praying. hahaha

Basically this week we're starting over from scratch! We only have one or two investigators, so we just gotta go out and find the elect! We have quite a bit of work cut out for us. haha

I'm trying not to think about the fact that transfers in next week or the fact that President recently said that I wouldn't be in Bangkok for much longer. Yikes!

Hope you all have a fabulous week!

Sis Zaugg

Sai got baptized!!!!!

So despite the fact that Sister Adams got food poisoning on Sunday....  and then AGAIN on Wednesday, we still had a pretty good week, because Sai got baptized yesterday!!!!!!!!!!!!! We were so proud and happy for her! She still has suuuuch a long way to go in her spiritual progression, but now she has all the tools to help her to continue to grow... mainly the Holy Ghost! She's so awesome. The Elders had two baptisms. That was the first time in Pangna history that there were three baptisms in one day! Awesome. :) So happy! Baptismssss!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We're really hoping for better health this week, because we only have two weeks left of this transfer and need to hit the streets hard! We want to sprint to the end. We basically don't really have any one solid anymore now that Sai is baptized... so we need to go out and find the elect! Me and Sis News mopping up the kitchen  after a random flood from the sink while Sis Adams  was vomiting in the bathroom next door.  Poor girl. :( Yesterday was election day, and so all the missionaries were on house arrest because of the protesters. I always hear about the protests... but I've never actually seen anything big! :/ Basically we had to be at the church or at home. So we helped wash some dishes..... talked with members..... held a baby bunny (yes, a primary girl brought her pet bunny to church in an Easter basket). Random baby bunny Not too much happened this week to report on. A lot of people fell through on us, so we don't have many new investigators to rave about. Next week we will, though! Today for P-Day we went with the Saphaansung district to the Ancient City! It was SO FUN! Pictures to follow. :) Love you all! Have a wonderful week. I love Thailand and love serving the people here even more! Love, Sis Zaugg   (keep scrolling for lots of pictures)   Here is Boy giving me some flowers that she picked. SO CUUUUTE! Contacting at a bus stop for a million years waiting for the right bus to come.... The ancient city is a big park that you go around. We had to pick super ghetto little bikes to ride around on.  We love Thailand! Sis Holmes, Sis Steele, Sis Adams and me!  I love my companion! Just ridin' through an ancient city on our ghetto bikes Seriously the coolest wad in the whole world. Not sure if it was Buddhist or Hindu, though...  It was super sparkly inside! Sorry it's so blurry..... The original mini-me's!  Yup. We're cool. Always remembering my purpose. "Hello! We're representatives of Jesus Christ."  So after this picture I went further into the corridor but then one of those big scary lizards that lock jaw if they bite you ran at me and I ran screaming out of there! But then Elder Delagarza decided to go in  to get a picture of it and it jumped at him!! So he was stuck in the corridor yelling, "I CAN'T GE OUT OF HERE!" We were like, "Just run out!!" and he was like, "I'm too scared!!!!!" hahahahahha He came out alright in the end, though. hahaha Bangkok!!!

Guess who has food poisoning.....

 Fattest dog I've ever seen.

Hahahahahah Soooo uhhhhhhhhhhh.... we're never eating member food again. Around 6:00PM last night we were heading to Imperial to go contacting when Sis Adams just stopped and was like, "I'm gonna vomit." So we ran back to the apartment and yup! She vomited. All night. We're trying to think of a way to avoid eating member food without offending them............... It'll take some more thought.

Well, as always, I'm shocked at how fast this week went by.

A member's doggy who went psycho crazy on Sis Adams.

This week we had another major break through with our investigator, Sai. We taught her about baptism and why she has to do it. The member that was helping us teach randomly was like, "If you knew that you were gonna die tomorrow... would you be baptized?" And Sai was like, "Of course!" Turns out she already wants to do it, it's just that she's worried about her family who is super Buddhist. The member was really great and shared her experiences of how her family was really against her changing religions at first but later accepted it. In the end I just looked at her and was like, "We didn't meet by coincidence. You're supposed to do this." She really thought about that and at the end of the lesson she was like, "Sis Zaugg... what you said about us meeting not being a coincidence.... It's really strange. On that day that we met, I was riding the bus home. That bus didn't go all the way home so I needed to get off and get on a song thew to go the rest of the way. But after I got off the bus, I just felt like I wanted to walk... and it was when I was walking that I met you and decided to go to the church with you." The crazy thing about this story is that where she got off the bus was REALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLY far from her house. It was gonna be like a 40 minute walk. And Thai people HATE walking. I mean they abhor walking. It's ridiculous the extents to which they will go to avoid walking. And she just randomly decided to walk and bumped into us! Coincidence? NO WAY! She accepted a date for this week. We're really hoping that Satan doesn't get to her!!!! She's still at a really fragile stage right now.

Sad news: we had to drop K, our deaf investigator. :C 

We're dropping a lot of our investigators, actually. We're working on getting a new pool. We've been finding some pretty good potentials, though! A lot of people have been running up to me and being like, "HOW DO I GET CLEANED FROM MY SINS?!?!?!?!" or "HOW DO I CHANGE RELIGIONS??!?!?!?" It's been way cool to see us being lead to those who are prepared!

Making yummy Thai salad at a member's house!

The ward has recently started a weekly Sports Night. Every Saturday we play random games with members and investigators! The two best parts of this week's Sports Night was when the Elders interviewed their recent convert's son and he passed, and then when she came a member was like, "Hey did you know there's gonna be a baptism tomorrow?" And she was like, "No, who?" and the member was like, "It's that kid in the red shirt." and she was like, "WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT???" hahaha 

 The wilderness behind the church.
Note the sign that says:
"It's forbidden to throw away trash here."

Next best part was after one of the Zone Leaders who was on switch offs with Elder Wahl for the day threw the Frisbee over the wall into the giant wilderness wasteland beyond it and while the members were scrambling about trying to figure out how to get it back, Sis Adams and I somehow started the most hilarious game with the primary. There's a little girl whose name is Boy (yeah.. haha), and she's SO CUTE. She's absolutely nuts and is obsessed with the missionaries. She and the twins and another little boy would point to one of us and shout our name and then we would be like, "YAYYY!", give them a high five and then they would do a little dance. Basically we were just yelling at each other, throwing high fives around and dancing for a good 10 minutes straight. It was soooooooo funny! And it stuck, too. Now whenever one of those kids see us we play it again. hahahahahha

Sooo yeah! Today we get to spend another P-Day chilling at home..... but I guess things could be worse. haha Have a good week, ever'rybody!

Love,

Sis Zaugg

Heyoooooooooooo

Sawatdii friends and family tuug taan!

I'm sitting here trying to remember what happened this week... but it went so fast I can barely remember! hahaha

We spent a lot of time teaching Brother K, our deaf investigator. He had a goal to be baptized this last Sunday... but his understanding was really limited. He can read and write, but it's hard for him to understand and we can't ever understand his understanding because he can't answer open ended questions. :/ He was supposed to interview on Friday night, but after we asked him if he had repented... we realized that he still didn't understand what repentance was... or that he even had sin to repent of. :( We decided that he needed more time. He was really sad after that and didn't go to church on Sunday. Sis Adams kept saying that maybe he was ready and that we hadn't had enough faith and had taken that opportunity away from him. I didn't want to believe it, though..... But after that he wouldn't answer our texts. We thought we lost him! But, we (mostly me) had a lesson on humility and realized that even though we tried our best... maybe we could have done more to help him be prepared for baptism, so this morning we prayed together and repented and guess what! Right after our prayer he texted us! We're so grateful for this second chance that God has given us to teach Brother K. I think from this experience I truly learned what it means to come before God with a broken heart and a contrite spirit. It wasn't easy for me to repent... mostly because I was sure that K hadn't been ready, but I decided that I would rather lose my pride than a child of God. :) It was worth it.

This week we've met a lot of prepared people! We found a woman who recently moved to Pangna who is looking for God and comfort, a grandma who is raising her grandchildren and who is looking for a good place to raise them, and a few others. We're pretty excited to see what happens with all of these new people!

This week we had a break through with our investigator Sai. She just couldn't accept that she had faith until we had a throw down lesson with her and told her that she had faith and gave her hw to read Alma 32. The next day she had a different demeanor... she told us that she thinks she DOES have faith!! Woo hoo!!!! She has grown so much since we first started teaching her! She's seen he light and she loves it. :)) She said, "Sisters, would you believe it? I take the Book of Mormon everywhere with me. I read it in the bathroom when I'm sad." Awwww yeah!

So yeah.......... I really..... can't remember anything else. hahah I feel like Pangna is so normal compared to Saphaansung. Nothing crazy happens.... ever..... I kinda miss it! haha

Love you all!!

Sister Zaugg

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

A baptism and food poisoning

 Members' new years party
included lots of crabs and fish.

Happy New Years!!!! New Years was way annoying here because EVERY ONE and their grandma goes out of town on New Years so there was way less people out on the streets to contact... and the people who we did contact weren't free to meet that week! BUT We still somehow managed to get 6 investigators to church on Sunday, which was such a miracle. Pangna is starting to explode. It's amazing to watch.

Baptism!

Our investigator Noon was baptized yesterday! We still don't really understand how it happened. We literally did nothing..... except for put ourselves outside of Imperial World (a mall) and talk to her mom. She and the Spirit did everything else! We knew her for 7 days, taught her 4 times and she was baptized on her second Sunday at church. Sis Adams and I both aren't really sure if it even happened at all. We're like... "Wait.... what? We've only been here for two weeks!" When we made a goal for a baptism this Sunday last week, we had no idea who it was gonna be and at the time hadn't even met Noon yet. We just trusted that it would happen.... and it did! She is so boss! At her baptism she gave the best testimony I've ever heard. The members were really welcoming, too. Woop woop!

As a mission we're really focusing on letting the Lord do His work. All we have to do is be obedient and ask for it! For next week we have a goal for 2 baptisms... yet again, not sure who it's gonna be... but we believe in miracles. :)

I don't have too much to say this week, mostly become I'm sicker than a dog currently. I got food poisoning last night... from what, I have no idea. I spent last night in our restroom. :( 

Just want y'all to know that God truly is hastening His work! I'm witnessing it first hand. 

This is going to be a historic year for the church in Thailand. It's a blessing to be here at this time. 

Love,

Sis Zaugg