Week 22: TRIO means there times the fun

1. The dream team

hellllllloooooooooooooooooo from Thailand! So this last week was transfers and I am now in a trio. Sister Ballif and I stayed here and we have a greenie, Sister Janjarus!! We are in a trio and it is so fun! I am now sleeping on the couch so I feel right at home (I fell asleep on the couch all the time at home/BYU). Sister Janjarus is from eastern Thailand and she is only with us for 4 weeks or so before she heads over to the MTC in Provo, Utah and then will serve in the the Utah Salt Lake City Temple Square mission. So I practice my Thai with her and she speaks English with me. Good system! Having a greenie has helped me recognize how much progress I have made in the last 5 months. I can (and do) talk with and invite everyone I see. I can teach lessons and I can help people come unto Christ. I have SO far to go and I know so little, but it is cool to see how far I can come. I didn't recognize it until Sister Janjarus said I was skilled at talking with people even though she is the native speaker. I don't need to speak Thai perfectly to accomplish my purpose!

Let me tell you some things that happen on a daily basis here because I don't usually send great emails but I have some time today.

6:20 wake up, pray, hit the gym (I love our gym

)

7:15 make a smoothie with whatever fresh fruit is around the house, shower, get ready for the day, maybe try to catch up in my journal haha or throw in some laundry or clean up a little

8:00 plan for the day - who we will teach, where we will go, when we will study, and make calls

8:30 the day starts!! We study for 3 hours during the day - 1 hour of personal study where we study the scriptures, preach my gospel, general conference talks, etc; 1 hour of language study in which we (you guessed it) study Thai! I practice vocab, writing, reading; 30 minutes of companionship study where we prep for teaching and 30 minutes of training where we pretty much watch the district. We study whenever we have time in the day, not necessarily consecutively. Then we spend time teaching investigstors, inviting everyone (EVERYONE) to learn about Jesus Christ and come to English class, visiting members, and serving. We don't always end up following the plan because things always change - someone calls and wants to meet with us and people cancel. We also have 30 minutes for lunch and an hour for dinner (if we have that much time left over). Some days have other things we do as well.

Monday's are Pday (preparation day) and we do whatever we need or want to until 6 when we have the normal schedule. Today we went to Amped, a trampoline place, with a bunch of other missionaries.

Tuesday's we have district meeting where the 11 missionaries in the Bangna and Sammy Prakan wards meet to discuss the needs of the people we teach and have training. We teach English on Tuesday night which is so fun! We have 3 classes: children, beginner, and advanced. I taught advanced last transfer and LOVED it. Usually after English we teach investigators or new people who came to English.

On Thursdays we have a weekly planning session where we make goals and talk about all of our investigators and other people we are working with and their needs.

On Friday we have sports Night in the evening where we read scriptures together for 30 minutes and then play soccer, basketball, ping pong, volleyball, or whatever for a little while. We have investigators and members come to that.

On Sunday we go to church, teach investigators who came to church, eat with the members, have ward correlation meeting, and that fills most of our day. Sundays are busy!

9:00pm (or 9:30 if teaching) we come back home and write in our journals, talk, get ready for bed, clean up, study....

10:30 lights out and do it all again tomorrow

Here are some things that happen very often here...

-someone asks if I am pregnant or just says I am fat

-people say I speak Thai very well and clearly (which isn't necessarily true but they say that about any foreigner who speaks at all)

-I buy lots of fresh fruit

-we meet some cool or crazy people

-someone (or everyone) cancels their appointments with us

- we teach people from Thailand, Pakistan, India, China, and all over really - I teach in English a bunch here too

Cool stuff from recently...

-we are teaching this lady from Pakistan and she was Christian before and she left Pakistan because of religious persecution. We taught her about the Plan of Salvation and she said it gave her new hope. It was really touching and sweet to see someone recognize that the center of our message is hope and happiness - that is what Jesus Christ offers us! The more I study about the Plan of Salvation, the more I realize it is a perfect plan that will help us to have real and lasting progression, purpose, and happiness in life. If you want to learn more about it or want to hear some new insights about it, email me :)

-on Thursday we had transfers and visa stuff so we went to the mission office and I went with my MTC group to this visa place and it took all day to just sign a few pieces of paper....we left our house at 5ish for the office and left the office to go to the visa place at 7:30 and we got back to the office at 4. But it was fun to see my MTC group again and spend time with them. But I missed the trainers meeting and poor sister ballif and janjarus were waiting around forever, but then we got to head home to Bagna! I LOVE BAGNA!!

-so when we were doing visas we met a bunch of people from China who live in Bangna so naturally I picked up all of their numbers and we had a lunch appointment and one of them really wanted to come to church so we gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon in Chinese and he came to church the next day. You could barely understand his English and he knows less Thai than English. So it was funny watching everyone try to communicate in a mix Chinese, Thai, and English. He used Google translate a lot and he said something through Google translate about how he saw someone throwing a cat out of the Church so I just brushed it off as a translate error. Anyways a member in the ward spoke Chinese and translated for him. In gospel principles we had 3 people translating for 3 different people...cool. Anyways, so later I am telling my companions this story of him using Google translate and the cat and the other sisters said that there actually was a cat in the church. Turns out there was a cat in the ceiling of the church who was chillin up there trying to get the food in the kitchen and it broke some ceiling tiles and anyways a member took it by the tail and chucked it over the 15 foot fence. And our Chinese investigator just happened to witness this and I thought he was crazy.

-Sister Ballif had her birthday on Sunday! We had a fun time celebrating.

-bugs have eaten my legs. I am just a giant bugbite at this point

Okay I love you have a good week!

Sister Lahti

2. The MTC district