New Investigators. YAY!!!

So this week was really awesome! We got 13 new investigators, who all seem SOO amazing!! I am so excited to see them progress! Most of them were from English class, but one of my favorites was as we were going out inviting we came across this cute old lady and were talking to her for a minute, and when we asked her if we could come talk to her for a minute, she politely declined saying it wasn't convenient because she was about to watch some Muay Thai (the thai boxing) HAHAHA!! So funny! this sweet little old lady going to watch some boxing, which apparently is very common here and you really can't interrupt them during it! But we returned a couple days later and asked her if we could teach her then and she was much more willing b/c i guess muay thai wasn't on, and her family was there too so we got to chat with them as well and we are going back again this week and they just all seem great! her kids have talked to some elders a little a few years ago, but never with sisters and they seem really open and interested! and since i can't ever remember her name, she is just Muay Thai Maa to us! Ok now for a little bit of stressfulness!! So yesterday morning before church, we got a call from our elders saying that 2 of the speakers cancelled on us and so we would have to speak in church!! AHHH!!! so this was about 1/2 hour before church and I still cannot speak thai soooo it was very nerve racking! But i got up and basically made a fool out of myself cuz i know i completely slaughtered tones and mispronounced words, but apparently my faces and actions were enough to make up for that b/c several people made comments on how at least i was vibrant and made fun faces, so i guess it went ok! haha But then to add to the stress, yesterday we were double booked so we had to go on splits w/ some members and i was TERRIFIED!! I had to basically lead the lesson by myself and ya it was scary, luckily i had a great member with me to help, her name is Mink, she's 21 and knows what's she's doing thankfully! The family we taught didn't understand me AT ALL, so luckily Mink did and was able to translate my thaiglish for me! Then to add to the excitement, after the teaching was done,my comp called to meet back up and apparently as she was locking up the church the member she was with just drove off, not realizing that missionaries are not allowed to be alone! AHHHH!!! so that was fun! Me and Mink hurried and biked to the church and got her but how funny right? But ya so yesterday was a very stressful day, and to top it off all our investigators didn't show up, which was maybe a good thing b/c church was a bit of a joke yesterday! it was basically all run by the missionaries, which is not good at all! hahaha and the senior elder got up to speak too, and he just went off on these random stories and ya it was just an interesting day but the church is still true even if there were some possible apostate comments (which apparently happens quite frequently here in thailand) hahaha Another fun story was when we went to visit w/ an RC and his wife who is a current investigator (getting baptized on the 30th, YAY) but we were talking about temple work etc. and as we were explaining baptisms for the dead she asked us "so we get the bodies of the dead and bring them to the temple to baptize them right?" GAHHH!!! We quickly told her no, we do them ourselves to represent the dead, (which after made much more sense) But the best part about it, is that she has so much faith in the gospel that she was ok with that and on board, b/c she knows this is the true church!! She is sooo cute and i am soo excited for her to get baptized!! This week I also learned the importance of Less Active work, so since we are opening this area and really have nothing to work off of as far as former investigators go, we have decided to make LAs and members a priority here, which in thailand is also VERY rare, I may have already mentioned it already but ya most missionaries don't really do much in the way of teaching LAs or members, but i have a testimony that we need to be b/c of what we have seen this week! With the members, since they are pretty much all converts, they still don't have a firm grasp on what we can do in the gospel. So this week as we've visited we have been talking about family history and temple work and it's amazing that most of them have no idea that you can submit names to the temple and dont have to do them yourself (which is nice here b/c the closest temple is Hong Kong, so most members haven't had the opportunity to go) But they have just all gotten so excited to learn more so it's been great! we have awesome members here and I am sooo excited to see this branch grow!! We have also visited with several LAs who are just amazing, and just need some help coming back and feeling loved again and just need that little nudge and we got 3 to b in church yesterday which is awesome! we taught this one sister who is just amazing, she is an RM, in her 50s but when we were talking with her you could tell she just loved the gospel and just had some circumstances that she didnt feel right going to church, but she had all her mission pictures out and was tellling us about her mission and stuff, and she just is so great! and we had several other LAs like that too! I still can't believe no elders have gone to visit her though, on her record it just says less active RM which to me SCREAMS come find me and get me back to church!! haha But it was great to talk to her and help her remember how exciting it is to be a member of this church and missionary work etc. So since i am a missionary now I am going to leave you all with a commitment: Go find LAs in your ward and help fellowship them and remember their testimonies and bring them back to church!! Sometimes all it takes is having a friend to go with, so ask your bishop if there is anyone you can go visit! Or if not an LA just find someone who seems like they just aren't fitting in and be friends with them! Its amazing to see how much difference having a friend at church can make. President Hinkley said every convert needs 3 things, a friend, a responsibility and to be nourished by the good word of God. So go out and help them! Anyways, i think that's about it for the week! The pictures i added are from some ruins here in P-Lok of the old city from last pday.. super cool and it was fun to climb up them and see! Love you all!! Love, Sister Itri Oh another fun fact about our last name... if we spell it w/ a long e sound (ee) here it is a very innappropriate partical that more or less means in bible terms that yoru are a "harlot" AH so we had to call the office elders to make sure when they make my name tag they spell it correctly, and apparently the translation dept was aware of this and had to talk about how to spell itri in thai! hahahaha yay thailand!