Trains, Buses, taxi's, mafia and more!

Ok so this week was a little crazy! TRANSFER WEEK!!! AHH!!! And since this was my companion's last transfer it wasn't really a normal week b/c here on our last week we can switch our P-day to the day before transfers and go basically explore bangkok for the day and such so that's what we did! It was fun! we just went around to all the little shops and then explored some malls and such. Now for the story of getting to bangkok! It was AWFUL! So first we had tickets to go down by train... we got to the train station at about 11 at night and they told us our train was going to be 4 hours late!! So then a member ran to the bus station and said we could get on a bus so we returned our train tickets to get on a bus in the middle of the night for a 6 hour bus ride to Bangkok! Then when we get there we had to get a taxi to take us to one of the sister's houses in bangkok so we get to this area w/ all the taxi's and they were trying to charge us 1,000 baht to get to this house (which is SUUUPPPERR expensive for a taxi ride, normally and hour taxi ride is about 2-300 baht) But at this point we were exhausted and we could only get them down to 900 baht and they wouldn't turn on the meter and they were the only taxis we saw and we had a bunch of luggage and stuff so it was a mess! So my companion and i just said whatever and got in... then as we were driving, our driver apologized saying that he couldn't lower his price anymore b/c his boss was part of the thai mafia!!!! AHHHHH!!!! later i found out from some other sisters that apparently that area is really sketch and especially in the middle of the night and such... so lesson learned! hahaha Anyways that was our craziness of travelling! But the rest of the week was really good! We had a lot of goodbyes with my comp. S. Maxwell and then i got my new companion S. King!! She is really great and i think we are going to be able to do some awesome work together! I am way excited! And also mom you may or may not have served with her mom in philadelphia?! Her maiden name is Gee... so did you ever serve w/ a Sister Gee?? It sounds like she would have been there around the same time as you! Anyways super random when we found out that! Ok now for some investigators! B. Oh is doing soooo great!!!! He is right on track to have his baptisimal interview this friday and be baptized next saturday! YAY! He is so great and just so ready for the gospel in his life... this week he shared an experience with us of how he had come to our english class like a year or 2 ago and wasn't really impressed and what not but then a few months ago he just had God and religion and stuff on his mind and he was saying how he jsut wanted to know if God was real and stuff, so he would just repeat over and over in his mind God, God, God, etc etc. And then he decided to come try english class again and that's where we met him and have been teaching him ever since!! It's seriously been sooooo amazing to see him progress and just completely change his life around and i am sooo excited to see him continue to progress! He is AWESOME! This week we also began teaching this kid Jack... We met him about a month ago from teaching english at this College close to us that we were asked to help and so we have seen him a bunch but this week he came to our english class that we teach at the church and said he was interested to learn more about the church too! I am suuupppperrr excited b/c from the 1st week we taught english at his school I have wanted to teach him b/c he is just so adorable! But I think he is going to be great! He knows B. Art our recent convert (they go to school together) So having his testimony will be awesome! I can't wait to see him progress as well! Other than that, this week has been just kind of random trying to show my new companion around and just kind of getting used to how she teaches and such.. but i am officially done w/ training!! WHOO! Even though i still feel like I need another 6 months with this crazy language before i will be confident with it! haha but i am no longer a greenie! haha But that was my week! Love you all and thanks for all the letters this week! Sounds like things have been pretty crazy w/ kyle getting home and i guess kent leaving?? (no one told me he got his mission call.......) but ya that is super excited! hope things are going well for everyone!! Love, S. Itri Ps... sounds like you haven't been able to get my pictures so i guess i will try and fix that! sorry

i'm gonna date him before i leave

HAAPPPYYY BIIIRRTHHDAAY LIIINNNKKIIIINN!!!!! (and J.Dee and Carly too :) ) Is link really 2 already!??! I don't believe that at all!!!!!! I hope you have a great b-day party for him and i want pictures!!! haha and Hope J.dee and Carly both had great birthdays too! :) Anyways so this week was another great week in Thailand! I will start with brother Ooh. He. is. awesome. So first off we were able to move his baptismal date to Sept. 1st :) yay!! he is soooo ready to be baptized, if it were up to me he would be baptized today! haha But this week he also introduced us to his mom so we have been able to teach her too! And she is just as awesome as him! Its funny b/c when we begin teaching her she just looks so tired (b/c she works all day) but then by the end of the lesson she is so alert and just excited asking a bunch of questions and such! and we committed her to be baptized as well! I am sooo excited for them and their entire family! There are 2 more brothers that we still haven't had the chance to teach yet but we are hoping to meet with them here in the next couple weeks! I just love seeing how much the gospel helps people! Ooh has just progressed SOOOOOO much and you can just tell he is so much happier to know these things! We also mentioned a little bit about missionary work w/ him and i think he is interested in serving a mission too! not positive, but he kept asking questions about it and such, so we'll see! He would be such a great missionary! Last night we were teaching his mom and i was struggling SOO bad (i am a little under the weather) so when his mom couldn't understand me he would just explain everything and do it way better than I could!! haha He is just so great! And his girlfriend Biim is still doing good, she is not progressing quite as fast as Ooh and we still need to get permission from her mom to baptize her, but she is still so great! She comes with great questions and he faith is definitely building :) Ok now for Gap! WOOW he is awesome too!! So we visited w/ him and were just catching up on his reading and such and we asked him, so where are you in the BoM... and he was like Mosisah 20 something.... so we got all confused b/c last time we talked to him he was in Alma... so then he was like, "oh yea i finished the whole thing already... i'm on my 2nd time through!!!" WHHHAAAATTT?!??! Who is this kid right!?! Goodness he is sooo great!!! He just loves to learn and wants to be baptized! And although he wasn't able to make it to church yesterday (it was thai mothers day) he asked us if we would come over after church anyways b/c he wanted us to teach him!!! AHHH!! Now we just need to get the rest of his family progressing as fast as him!! hahaha But they are all still doing good! This week we talked to B. Art about missionary work and it was so good! He has some concerns about money and such but I just know he is going to go! He has been helping the Elders teach like every single day and they keep telling us how great he is and that he just has the best advice and is just so helpful! I know he is going to be such a great missionary i can't even wait!!! This week is my Companions last week in Thailand so we have also been spending lots of time w/ members and less actives and such and it just makes me so happy b/c we really just have the best members and investigators and just everything here is soooo great!!!! It's really weird to think i am going to be getting a new companion on thursday... and a little bit scary! I am semi terrified that I am going to get a thai companion and we aren't going to be able to communicate at all... b/c although i have learned a lot the past few months.. i am still lost 65% of the time! hahaha But i know whoever i get will be what i need! haha Now for the funny/awkward moment of the week... So me and my companion were talking to S. Harris (the senior sister in our district) and we were talking about our member, S. Mink and her parents and how they just need to be baptized... so we were talking about her dad and i said... ya i'm going to date him before i leave ! (as in give him a baptism date) but S. Harris just heard it as in i want to date him before i leave and just went off saying "Well S. Itri, I don't think that's too appropriate is it?" hahaha the best part is she is from England so now picture that with a British accent and you have one of the funniest moments this week! haha I dont really know what else to say other than i just LOOOOVVEEE being a missionary!!! and even if i don't understand everything all of the time I can just feel the testimonies of all these amazing people and see their desire to change and it is just so awesome!!!! Hope everything is great at home! Love you! Love, ซ. อิตรี

"If I didn't have faith I wouldn't be on this stupid bus!!!"

Hello Family! This week was good! A little bit hectic b/c we had Zone Conference so we had to go up to Chiang Mai again so there were some long bus rides involved but it was really good. Zone Conference was great! I'm really excited about our new mission president and for the things he has planned for Thailand! One thing he mentioned is that we can start to basically get as creative as we want in our finding new investigator tactics... apparently a few Elders tried the Dan Jones, Soap Box method just standing out there on one preaching! hahaha... sounds like that one wasn't too effective but I would love to hear some ideas from everyone! What were effective finding ideas on your mission? Or ideas you had but just never did! Let me know! Be as creative as you want! :) Ok so now back to the bus ride, as i think i have mentioned before to get to Chiang Mai is about a 6 hour bus ride of no leg room, blasting Thai music w/ obnoxious music videos to go along with it...So as we were on our journey's the senior couple were sitting by us talking about gospel stuff and faith etc. etc. and then as they were talking i hear the Senior elder, Elder Harris just say to his wife, "If I didn't have faith I wouldn't be on this stupid bus!!!" hahahaha he doesn't like buses much..... ha Another funny story... i don't think i've told it but the other week we were teaching these 2 guys and we were talking about baptism and showed them a picture, and so one asks, "why is his arm up?" and the other investigator instantaniously says.. "it's so he can whack him duh" hahaha so we got a kick out of that and it got brought up again this week so i thought i would share it. ha This week we began teaching some new people who have a Christian Background and man is it hard! You would think it would be easier than teaching a bunch of Buddhist that don't even know who God is, but nope! They are really great and they know their stuff, but when we tried to give them a baptismal date and explain to them about it they just kept saying, "we've already been baptized though...." AH! and then we went to authority and they just said their preacher had authority too! So they are going to be a little more difficult than we expected, but they are great and came to part of church yesterday so that was awesome! This week we also set out as missionaries and some awesome branch members to clean up our rented church building b/c it was DISGUSTING!! The room we had to teach in had stains all over, the paint was cracking and chipping and as we were cleaning we found mold of every color and variety so that was fun! White mold, yellow mold, red mold and more! But we were able to clean things up a bit, fix some leaks and paint it and it looks a million times better now! On Saturday the mission president and his wife came into P-lok and were able to come teach with us (president w/ the elders and S. Senior w/ us) and it was so good! S. Senior is so great and just really gave our investigators some great advice and such! Then on Sunday they were able to come to church and while Pres. was speaking he may have announced that he would begin to search for land for us to get our own building here in P-Lok!!!!! YAYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We couldn't even believe it! We are sooooo excited and i think that is really going to help the work here progress, b/c right now we can't even fit all our members and investigators in this little tiny building, it was funny afterwards President was like, I realized you needed one when every time someone came up to bear their testimony and go sit back down and everyone was playing musical chairs trying to find a place to sit!! hahaha So needless to say we are so excited to see how much this branch has progress and will continue to progress! After church yesterday we also were just hanging out talking to some of the members and one of the Elders had given our new Recent convert B. Art his Missionary White Handbook to read, and afterwards he was like so what do i need to do to save money to go on a mission, etc. etc.!!!! AHHHH why is he so great and so ahead of us? He like just reads our minds of the next thing we are going to teach him and just beats us to it!!! So this week we are going to talk to him about missionary work and help him prepare to serve a mission hopefully!!! :) So, we have come to the conclusion that our investigator, Ooh just is trying to stump us! He just comes with the best questions! haha This week he had "Why did Nephi's bow have to break, he was doing everything right etc. etc.?" and his other question was "do we believe in coincidences?" so what are your thoughts on these things? I know what we said but I want some other view points :) Well I think that is the gist of my week here! This week is my last week w/ my companion S. Maxwell, and she will be heading home next week! AHHH!! It's going to be soo weird! But ya hope everything is going well. Commitment: bring one non-member friend to church. Our mission president said if every member could just bring 1 person think about how great that would be! Our wards (branches) would DOUBLE if everyone just brought ONE person.. So that's what I will commit each of you to do :) Hope everything is going great! Love you all! PS you should all probably right me b/c i only got a tiny bit from J.dee this week. Ok that's all :) Love, S. Itri

Muangbaromasugakasem!

So this week was kind of slow... it just seemed like EVERYTHING went wrong! haha We had like everyone cancel our lessons, and half our investigators are out of town, so that was kind of a bummer.. We also went out proselyting but had 0 luck at all. We are claiming its b/c we are in a Book of Mormon shortage here and it's really hard to teach the restoration when we don't have any BoM's to hand out! Even at our English class we had 0 new investigators which we normally get at least 2-4 so that was a bummer! But oh well, hopefully we can get some BoM's soon so we can continue to teach!! But we did have some great lessons with Ooh and Biim this week! They are soooo great!! They are scheduled to be baptized October 6, however we think they will be ready before that! They just have a few more things they need to work out. They did mention that they may want to get married so who knows?! It was funny this week we were talking about the spirit world and paradise and prision and the word for paradise in thai is "muangbarmasugakasem" (say that 10 times fast) and when we said it they didn't recognize the word so we explained that it's basically heaven or "sawan" and Biim was like... "well why didn't you just say that then!" hahahaha But ya they are both still doing so great! Then we taught Guy's family again and they are all preparing to be baptized on Oct. 13th! We are super excited for them! they are such a great family and will really help the branch here i think! We were able to teach the plan of salvation with them and I think that really helped them realize what their purpose in life is and gave them a good goal to work for. We also have a new investigator that seems like he is going to progress great! His name is Daow, we've only met with him once but he seemed really excited to learn. He has previously been a monk but he felt like things were just super corrupt in the way Buddhism is set up so he is just looking for something that makes sense! So this week we are going to teach him the restoration and see where it goes from there! But he is so great! I have been soo impressed w/ how much these younger people are interested in religion and such.. he is like 21/22 or something like that and he just wants to know the truth! and most of our investigators are about 20-27 so it's been super interesting to see them grow and learn! I love it! Other than that, this week has really been slow, even with hours of proselyting and trying the best we can, just not a lot of luck :( Hopefully once we get some more BoM's to hand out things will pick up! By the way it is WAAAYYY hard to teach the Restoration w/o having one to hand out! hahaha We have been tempted to go make some pirated copies (there arent any copyright laws here) b/c we just don't know what to do! haha Committment: Be on time to all your appointments and don't cancel on anyone!!!!! :) and bring a friend to church while you're at it! Anyways, hope everything is going good at home! Love you! Love, S. Itri