another week

So I am a little disappointed that i find out I have a new nephew but have NOOOOO pictures!!!!!! Come on Family!!! there's 6 of you at least ONE of you should be able to send some :) But yay!!!! I am soooo excited to have a new little nephew little Austin John!!!! That's sooooo exciting!!!! Congrats Jon and Dani! Anyways, this week was a pretty standard week other than we had investigators CALL US!!!! WHAATT?!! that never happens, and they called to set up appointments b/c they just couldn't go longer w/o us teaching them!!!! AHHH!!!! So ya that was pretty awesome! We had 3 investigators do that with us this week! It was so bizzare but i LOVE it! But ya I don't really have much to write about this week, we have awesome investigators and members and everything is just going great! We also have 3 investigators that are going to be going up to Chiang Mai w/ us this week for District Conference which is nuts as well b/c it's a good 6 hour trip to go and they are all just so willing and want to go for conference! How cool are our investigators!?!?!? One of the ones who is coming to Chiang Mai hasn't even had the chance to come to church here yet but wants to go to Chiang Mai! Soooo coool!!! Yesterday it rained so church attendence was pretty low... I don't know if I have told you yet but Thai people are afraid of the rain so if it is raining they typically will not go out and some turn off their phones and such b/c they are afraid of lighting etc. etc. so ya rain really slows things down for us here, but we still had 4 of our investigators show up so that was awesome!! We had a pretty good lesson with Eve this week. We discussed authority and such again b/c she was just not understanding why she needed to be baptized again, and it clicked finally, but she is still unsure. She got really scared, 1. because she is terrified of water and 2. she is happy and comfortable at her other church and i think she has pressure from her aunt to stay where she's at. But I think she knows that eventually she will need to be baptized and make this change and that's why she is so scared. We do however need permission from her aunt b/c she is only 17 so we are hoping we can get that! She did come to church w/ Eve yesterday which what AWESOME! But she only stayed for sacrament, so not sure what she is thinking, hopefully we will figure that out this week! Other than that things were pretty standard nothing super exciting but we have a lot of people who are progressing and on track to be baptized so I am super excited! I love this work so much and I know that God is truly preparing these people for the gospel and wants them to be a member of the church and receive all the blessings that come with that! Being a missionary is awesome! Hope everything is going well at home! Sounds like everyone is having a fun weekend for Labor day! Love you! Love, S. Itri Here are some pictures so you can count your blessings of having a nice church building and make sure not to take it for granted! This is our rented building in Phitsanulok and we have been working on removing the mold and making it look a little nicer! ha The group pictures are us @ the school where we have been helping teach english at.

The Jing Joak in our toaster

So first off I have been gone for SIX MONTHS!!!!! WHHHAATTT?!?! I don't believe that at all! I just went to the MTC yesterday didnt' I? And there is no way that I have been in country for over 3 months now?!?! It BLOWS my mind! Missionary time is SOOO weeeeiiiiirrrrdddd!!! I don't like it! haha Things are always just moving so fast and so slow at the same time! It just doesn't make any sense!!!! But anyways just a random thought! Can't believe it has already been six months! Ok so now for something way more exciting.... BROTHER OOH WAS BAPTIZED!!!!!!!!!! YYYYAAAAYYYY!!! It was sooo greeat!!! the service was PERFECT! Other than the fact he stressed us out a bit by showing up 20 minutes after we asked him too! (but we had a feeling he would be a little late so we asked him to show up 30 min before the baptism! haha) When he got there though we were very relieved! But we were said at the same time b/c the reason he was late was b/c he went to pick up Biim, but she ended up having to work and wasn't able to make it! That made me really sad, b/c I really wanted her to be there! But his mom was able to come which was awesome!!! She is so cute! As far as the service went, the 2 speakers were AMAZING, first was S. Nid, a recent convert who talked about the sacredness of baptism and such and just did awesome, then S. Mink spoke and just rocked it out too!! AHH it was just so great! The spirit was so strong there! Then he was baptized by our Branch President and then he bore a very good testimony.. he went off a little bit about some story about snakes... i didn't quite catch it all, but it was cute! and then just shared a few other experiences so that was awesome! This week we also talked to him about missionary work and he is praying about possibly going to serve a full time mission! He was really interested in it and said he knew it would make his life better if he did, so that is so awesome!! YAY!! I am soo excited for him!!!! Ok other good news is we have a few more investigators with a goal to be baptized!! One is Naa and we gave her a date on the first lesson with her! She is so ready and willing to accept the gospel! and man is she a fireball!! She just talks and talks and talks!!! But I love it she is so great! and she already gave us a referral and brought a friend to the baptism!!! She is great!! and then we have Tukda who is awesome! She is so excited too! After the baptismal service she just felt the spirit so strong and she will be a great member as well! The first time we met her was at English class and one of the Elders turned to us and was like, yep she's gonna be baptized (w/o even talking to her) haha but she is so great and she really is so prepared for the gospel! We also taught this one lady, Mone who we met off the invite a month or so ago and just went back to check up on her and turns out she has been praying every night, and then we gave her a Book of Mormon and she started reading immediately! She is really good, but she is afraid he family may have issues if she converts, so we're working on that! But it was soo cute, we were teaching her about Christ's Ministry and her grandson was there and as we were showing pictures we got to the one of Christ coming in the clouds and immediately he came to the picture and started kissing it and just throwing his arms up and got super excited!! IT WAS SOOO CUUUTTTEEE!!! and I know it's because he remember's Christ and showing the picture just got him all excited! AH it was so great! haha And now for a last little random note... so the other day we go into our kitchen to make some dinner and we turn on the light and all the sudden this little Jing Joak (small little creepy pink lizard thing) pops up and runs into our toaster!! Scared us to death!!!! those things are everywhere here and we probably have about 10 of them in our house that hang around, but they scare us all the time!! We were way afraid to use the toaster for a day b/c 1. we didn't want to fry the Jing Joak and 2. we didnt want it to pop out at us, but eventually we did use it again and it was jing joak free! haha Welp that's about my week for ya... sadly i have no clue what's going on at home b/c i got 0 news from anyone (hint hint) So I hope everyone is doing well! (PS has baby Topango come yet!?!?) Love, Sister Itri

Busy Week

This week was a busy one!!! At English class this week we had like 15+ new people show up that we needed to teach gospel intros to and it was crazy!!! We had to split up and take a bunch at a time! But we got some really great new investigators from it so i am way excited! Like half of them already have a Christian background, which is SOOOO WEEEIIRRDD!! we had to completely change up our teaching style when we found out b/c normally our fist lesson is just explaining who God and Jesus are so it's been interesting to try and switch things up a bit! But it's been fun! This week our investigator, B. Ooh had his baptismal interview and passed!!! YAAAAYYY!!!! He will be getting baptized this Saturday and i couldn't be more excited!! He has completely changed his life around and we have just seen soooo much progress with him! And he now wants us to start teaching his brothers here really soon, which is so great!! I am soo excited for him!! Ok so this week we are trying to help get some activities going for our YSA investigators and members so I need some ideas for fun games, activities, etc. to help get things going!! Most of our investigators are all in the YSA range but it's so hard to get them all to be friends w/ the members the same age and such so we are just trying to make it so they can all at least meet each other and have friends in the branch when they come to church and stuff, so any ideas are helpful!! :) This week we taught Eve the Word of Wisdom and it was soooo funny! We were explaining to her that we had a law for our health and such and the first thing she said was "can you not eat pork???!!" Sooo concerned, and getting us mixed up w/ islam.... but that's ok... the best part about it though, was her aunt had just given us some food that we were eating... that had pork in it!! hahaha But she is sooo cute and she is so willing to do our commitments! Now for Gap... he is SOO GREEATT!! we went over and taught him this week and he is now in 2 Nephi.... for the THHHIIIRRRDD Time!!!!!! AHHHHH!!!!! I seriously just cannot believe this kid! He is so ready to be baptized! We are still just working on getting his whole family up to speed, but he is being such a great example to them! I love it! They are all so great!! We also have a new investigator B. Jack, and he is SOO GOOODD!! We met him teaching english at the technical college and i have wanted to teach him since we met him like 2 months ago but now we are and he is great! he came to church this week and just loved it and ya he is just awesome! Well I love being a missionary!! It's the best thing ever!!! Hope everything is going good at home!! Love you all! Love, S. Itri