Coco Yen

Hello! This week was another good week! We went on switch-offs which was way fun! I went to Roiet with S. Rodriquez who was in the group ahead of me, so we were in the MTC together for a while! I love her to death! It was way fun to be w/ her, but sadly we weren't able to get much teaching done when i was there, because of course the day i went was the day they decided to get air conditioning installed into their house! They just moved houses there and didn't have any AC so we had to stay home the whole day and wait for the AC to get put in. When we asked their District Leader what we should do in that time, he joked around and just said, just sit in your hammocks in drink some coco yens (which are just a chocolate drink thing here) so... we had to do a little of that! haha But we were able to help get things a little more organized for them! They are white washing in Roiet, so neither of the sisters really know anything so we just went through and called some formers and stuff, so that was good! It was fun to be there! My trainer served there for 6 months and she always talked about how great it was there so i was excited to have the chance to go there! But i should tell you about the most MISERABLE bus ride I have ever been on! So on buses here they don't care if there are no more seats. So they just sell as many tickets as they can and let as many people on as possible! So we got stuck on a 2 hour bus ride, standing with like inches of room between us and it was just hot and muggy and when people had to get off they just push through! Ah it was sooo bad! But it was definitely an experience! haha I hope that i never have to do it again, but now i can say ive done it! haha Having switch offs really helped our area here in Ubon though! the sister who came here had served here like 6 months ago so she was able to show my comp. a bunch of formers and members/LAs houses and stuff so that was awesome! One of the LAs she showed us is somewhere where we pass ALL THE TIME! and I remembered one day we were passing and someone yelled SISTER! and thought, ok we need to go back to that house! and it turns out it was an LA who is ADORABLE!! shes 16 and just kind of got lazy but she came to church this week and i think it will just take a little push and she will start coming back regularly from here on out! This week at church we were in the middle of singing the opening song and the power went out, so that was fun! we got to go through all of church with no lights, no microphone, and no air!! it got way hot! haha but they were doing some work in the city so they had to turn the power off i guess. then we had extra time in sacrament meeting, so guess who they decided to ask to share their testimonies?! the missionaries! yay!! as much as i love bearing my testimony in front of everyone, it is just not as fun when you have to do it on the spot and in thai! haha but it was good! Oh yeah! This week when we were going to a members house my bike decided to break! AGAIN! AHH! so i was just riding and the whole back side of my bike that holds my basket just fell off! So to fix it we had to use hair ties to hold it together, now it is being held together by zip ties! haha Always a new adventure! My bike has already gone through so much! My pedal fell off the first week in country, then about a week later the chain fell off, right now it makes this awful screeching noise and my brakes squeak and now its put together with zip ties! I love the life of a missionary!!! haha This morning was way fun! one of our investigators invited us to go watch her school group perform a skit in english! It was SO GOOD! They were sooo cute! and their group won!! i guess it's like a competition all over Thailand! Each school is judge and then the winners will go on to compete again and eventually go on to compete against the top groups in the country in bangkok! It was so fun to watch! Oh and this investigator, her name is Ploy, she is sooo great! She is basically already a member, but can't get permission from her dad for her to get baptized, but this week we made somewhat of a breakthrough with him! It was way funny too! So we just stopped by her house to see if she was home, but she wasn't, so we ended up talking to her dad for a bit and we always joke around with him about going to church and stuff (b/c if we try and be serious he gets upset and won't listen) but as we were joking around with him we started talking about the Book of Mormon and how he should start to read it, and we happened to have a reading chart thing, you know the ones where you color in after you read a chapter, any ways so i gave it to him as a joke and was like ok you need to read everyday and color in when you do! And he accepted the commitment to read!!!!!! AHHH!! It was so great! and we've already followed up a little and he has started!! We are sooooo excited!! But we just laughed so hard at the fact that the thing that finally convinced him, the most stubborn man in thailand, to read was a coloring chart for kids!! hahaha But we are really hoping this changes his heart and that not only his daughter can get baptized, but he will too!!! Oh yeah! This week when we were going to a members house my bike decided to break! AGAIN! AHH! so i was just riding and the whole back side of my bike that holds my basket just fell off! So to fix it we had to use hair ties to hold it together, now it is being held together by zip ties! haha Always a new adventure! My bike has already gone through so much! My pedal fell off the first week in country, then about a week later the chain fell off, right now it makes this awful screeching noise and my brakes squeak and now its put together with zip ties! I love the life of a missionary!!! haha Anyways, that is basically my week! It was way good! I love everything and everyone here! Things are going so good! Hope everything is going good at home! Love you all! Love, Sister Itri

Pictures

Hopefully this works! i tried to send these in the big email but it didn't work, but heres some pictures Pictures! 1: Transfer meeting 2: Gift from B. Gap (mentioned in last week's letter) SOO CUUTTEE 3: Investigators, Members and Missionaries from P-Lok! 4: S. Baw and Bang! cute members from P-Lok

Do you Love Me?

WHOAA!!!! CONFERENCE WAS SOOOO AMAAAZZINNNGG!!!!!! I have never appreciated conference as much as i did this conference... i feel soooo stupid for taking it for granted all those years! I'm such an IDIOT!!! haha But seriously though... we have a LIVING prophet, and LIVING apostles! How amazing is that!!!!!!!! And they are all soooo brilliant! I can't get over it! But this was the first question i have actually WRITTEN a question down and looked for an answer and guess what... it was ANSWERED!!! hahaha imagine that right? But it was soo good just to know that Heavenly Father really does want to answer us and gives revelation through the leaders of his church! As for what i like most, I don't even know where to begin! But i will start with Holland.... WOW!!! It really made me think, Do I love Christ? and Do I truly put him at the center of my life?! I love how straight forward he was and just made it so clear that we need to focus on Christ! I feel like often times we get caught up in the little things of the Church and forget the why we have the church in the first place! we are the church of JESUS CHRIST of latter day saints! I have especially noticed it here, testimony in Jesus is a lot harder to develop b/c the concept of the Atonement can be very hard to describe to people with no Christian background. But it is possible! haha I do want to try and improve on my teaching and focusing it more on Christ though. So that is my goal from here on out! I also loved Ballard's advice to make sure we pray every morning to find someone to serve and than constantly be looking for that person/people to serve! Which leads into Oaks' talk and serve kids! AHHH!! His talk was so eye opening right??? It made me sooo sad! But we do need to focus on those people who can't help themselves and make sure that we can serve them! And then as we do all these things we will be able to have more opportunities to serve others, like Pres. Monson said.. As we start to listen to the Holy Ghost and find the little ways to be answers to others prayers, we will be able to have those opportunities more often and they will be revealed to us b/c Heavenly Father trusts us and knows that we will act on them! So my commitment to you all is to do all of these things! Pray to find someone to serve. Seek those opportunities during the day. Follow those promptings and just do it! Don't make any excuses or justifications just DO IT!!!! Ok so that is my commitment and i really hope that you all do it! I am working on it to! But i know that if we do we can be the answer to other people's prayers! and that is so important! This week we had an investigator ask us, Why did you sacrifice to come here? You're not getting paid, so what do you get out of this? That really made me think, and i decided i really hate the word sacrifice and relating it to missionary work. Because it's really not a sacrifice at all! I have gained sooooooo much more as a missionary than i could have ever gained in school, or dating, or marriage, etc. etc. I have grown closer to my savior personally and i have been able to see others grow closer to their savior as well! And that's what we get out of this! We get to have more faith, and we get to see the happiness and joy that comes to others as they gain faith and recognize the blessings of having the gospel in their lives! Anyways it just really made me think of what I have gained here and if this is a "sacrifice" I will gladly sacrifice forever! Because i really have gained more in the past what 7 months? than i have in the past 21 years of my life! Anyways. This week was awesome. I love Conference! I hope everyone got as much out of it as i did! Love you all! Love, S. Itri

Road Trip

Sawatdii Kha Krabkrua!! (Hello Family) How was conference!??! I still haven't got to watch it yet so i have no clue!! We will watch it this weekend b/c it needs to be translated. But i heard some crazy stuff that now Elders can go when they are 18 and sisters when they are 19!?!?! WHHHAAATT?!?! That is sooooo craaazzyyy!!! But super exciting, b/c that means we will be getting lots more missionaries here pretty soon!!! AHH!!! But anyways, this week was sooo good!!!!! Right now in our mission we are focusing to doing LA work and getting members to return to church, so this week as a companionship we decided to really push for getting some LAs to return to church. We started off with just asking a member to help us figure out who they knew and who we could go visit. Well when we went to her she decided that she would go with us the next day to help us find some of these people. So we figured we would just go to like 2 houses of some LAs, well that was not the case. This member and her husband sacrificed their whole day to take us around and we were able to go visit about 6 LAs and 4 other members and just help strengthen our branch! It was sooo good!! It was really like a road trip! haha we had bathroom and snack breaks and just were in the car all day! hahaWe met them at 1 pm and then we were driving all around until 8 30 at night! They are so great!!! and on sunday we had 5 people who hadn't been to church in over a month+ show up! it was soooo amazing! Heavenly Father truly blessed us. And it wasn't even all the people we went and saw, some were ones that we had just talked about seeing, but didn't end up getting the chance too, but Heavenly Father prepared them to come back! It is truly amazing!!!!! Another thing we focused on a lot this week was on using the Book of Mormon in our teaching! We talked about the importance of it and how we need to apply it in our teaching and how important it is to stress the significance of the BoM to everyone we teach! It truly is an inspired book and can help us through any trials we have! One of the members in my last branch showed me this picture/quote thing that i really liked, it had a picture of a really old, marked up and used set of scriptures and then had a quote "A person who's Scriptures are falling apart, means their lives aren't." or something to that effect. That is soo true! We need to make sure we are studying the scripturesEVERYDAY!!! So that's my commitment to you... make sure you study everyday and get the most out of everything you read! Don't just read to read... read to understand!!! Ok!? Another thing that i did this week is i read the Special Edition Liahona/Ensign all about the Book of Mormon, so if you can get a copy of that you should read that too!! (i think it's like Oct 2010) but it is soo good! Something so adorable that also happened was with our 11 yr old investigator, Bombay, (we are teaching his mom too) But we were over in his neighborhood the other day and ended up inviting into one of his friends randomly, but then we went over to teach Bombay yesterday and he ran and got his friend and was like, "Sister, Sister! My friend wants to be Christian too!!!" AHHHHH!!!!! SOOOO CCUUUTTTEEE!!! So we immediately gave them another Book of Mormon and told them to start reading together! and they were both just soo excited to start reading!!! haha!!! I love it!!! So we got a referral from an 11 year old... SO AWESOME!! haha Other than that this week we pretty standard, I'm still settling in a little bit here in Ubon and trying to figure things out, but everything is soo good! I love missionary work!! I especially love doing work with LAs! It is soo great to see them come back and remember the reasons they were baptized in the first place, to follow Christ!! AHH its just so great! Love you all (even if you still don't write me :) ) Hope everything is going good still!!! Love, Sister Itri

EASAN

WHAT A CRAZY WEEEEKK!!! and HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAMES!!! Ok so first off S. Na passed her interview and was prepared to get baptized this past saturday!! YAY! Now craziness... so it was moves week and usually we get a call on Tuesday afternoon to tell us if we are moving or not, so all day tuesday I was on edge b/c i really didn't want to move... so we were waiting and waiting and NOTHING! So then the rest of the night goes by and we don't here anything... we were sooo confused! b/c normally they tell you either way if you are moving or not... so we called our district leader, he called our zone leader who hadn't heard anything, so called the AP's and apparently President was still working on it at 10:30 at night!!! AHHH! It was soooo nuts so we had no idea if we had to leave or not...and its not like we could just find out last minute b/c we had to leave wednesday to make it to Bangkok on time so we were all like... well do we need to buy bus tickets or not??!!? AHH... So then Wed morning comes around and sitll nothing after we were done studying... then finally the Zone Leaders called but all they told us was you need to buy 2 bus tickets!!!! GAHHHH!!! so we still didn't know who was moving but we knew we were going to bangkok! So we go about the rest of our day and we were teaching and we had to call the Elders to give our investigator a priesthood blessing, well they had just gotten called and told us who was moving... and it was me :( I was sooooo bummed! I may have welled up a little bit.. b/c we were with our investigator who is suppose to get baptized in 2 weeks and is just so great and we have so many great investigators that i was just not ready to leave... but i didn't really have a say in the matter! So anyways I was suuuuupppperrrr bummed out but then the rest of the day was a mad dash to get everything ready! First off we had already made plans to go help a member who had a flood, so we went out and did that, but then i wanted to say bye to a bunch of members and investigators so we were just calling people and seeing who was free and in the midst of all this I had to pack! AHH it was soooo nuts! but i was able to teach my one RC b. Ooh and while we were teaching we had a bunch of members/ other investigators show up to say bye, so it basically just turned into a party! haha But my one investigator, B. Gap is soooo adorable, he got me a present and was just sooo sad that i had to go! and i was soo sad too! He was the first house that i had invited on my own when i first got here and he is just so great! But ya so he got me this adorable stuffed duck.. i attached pictures.. but anyways so that was the end of my time serving in Phitsanulok! I am still a little heartbroken b/c i know that sooo many great things are happening there right now and it's just growing so fast and i am sad i don't get to be more a part of that, but i am excited for a change! Ok now for transfers! I was like positive since i was moving i was going to be in Bangkok for sure! But as we were going through all the zones and the companionships, we got through all of Bangkok and my name wasn't called! so that meant i had to be going to the Easan or the East of Thailand! AH! So we go through and then finally my name got called and I got called to UBON! My new companion is S. Guildner who was my companion in the MTC, S. Church's trainer! So I am way excited to be with her and we already get along soooooo well! So it's going to be way good. So now i am in the easan where not only do they speak thai they speak easan which is basically laotian b/c we are really close to laos! AH!!! So it's going to be a fun adventure... and who knows maybe i will be ab le to pick up some Laotian while I am here! But the first couple of days have already been way good. They have a super nice church building here which is such a WEIRD change! Although i will miss my little rented building in P-Lok, it's nice to have a real building again! The branch here is way good and i am soo excited to serve here! they have so many good programs and things seem to be functioning really well here so that's way good! And I have already got to meet a bunch of investigators and members here and i can tell things here are going to be awesome as well! Anyways, things are going good. I love being a missionary! The work here in Thailand is AMAZING! Love you all! Love, Sister Itri sorry no pictures it's not working... and i am out of time

LOCK YOUR HEART

Hello Family! So this week a lot of things happened! Some good, some bad, some just crazy! haha So apparently there was some movie made in America that was really derogatory towards Muslims right? Well I guess there has been lots of rioting and attacks on Americans by Muslims all over the world now.. Scary! We have been told that we should be careful right now b/c there was an attack in Chiang Mai and Bangkok on some Americans... Super crazy! But apparently it isn't as serious here in Thailand as it is in other places. So no major concerns, especially if we are just doing missionary work and not doing anything stupid! ha But anyways, first off the sad thing that happened was with our dater, Gap. He is soooooo ready to be baptized and we were actually hoping to have his service this week, but when we talked to his parents about it, he told them that if he gets baptized he can no longer buwat prat... which is going to be a monk for like 2 weeks when you turn 20 so his parents said he could no longer get baptized!!! :( We were sooooo sad when this happened b/c he is so ready! So we tried talking to his parents again and they then said he can get baptized... but not until after he buwat's! AH that's another 4 years away first off and he doesn't believe/want to do it! So we are going to keep trying to work with his parents to see if they will change their minds. It's sooo weird b/c at first his mom and sisters all were preparing to be baptized too! They have slowly stopped wanting to learn but Gap is still doing so good and he is gonna keep fighting until he can be baptized. We are going to hopefully explain to his parents this week that he can go on a mission instead and they will be blessed way more than if he buwat's. So we'll see! It's really hard just b/c it is not only a religious ritual it is very engrained in the culture here to have their son buwat and ya it's just going to be really hard. We also have another investigator, B. Chode who may have the same problem.. he is 17 and the only son in his family.. he is already Christian.. but his family isn't, so he is nervous that they may not let him either.. but we are praying really hard that they don't have a problem... he really wants to be baptized as well and is already preparing to be a missionary! haha He is sooooo great! But yes this whole going to be a monk thing is going to be soo hard! But I know Heavenly Father will prepare a way for all of these people to be baptized! Ok so now Lock your Heart! This week we had lots of Lock your heart experiences! haha So if you haven't read the talk by Pres. Kimball called Lock your heart you can read it.. ha but That it is a running joke in our district for several reasons.. but one that happened this week occured w/ Elder Bennett... So we have this investigator, i think i may have mentioned her before... her name is Dang and she is already Christian, but she is very bizzare and just a very loud personality... well this week we had an activity at the church and she came and apparently she has a crush on our dear friend E. Bennett here.. right before she left she slipped a note into his pocket and was like, it's my number... well it was her number and also mentioned that she is single, lives alone and is free a lot! AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! Mind you, she is in her 50's.... poor elder Bennett! hahaha So we had to make sure Elder Bennett has locked his heart..... hahaha Then this week we also taught B. Ooh and the topic... ETERNAL MARRIAGE! hahaha so we go through the lesson and he is like super interested asking a bunch of questions and what not... at one point he turned to me and was like... S. Itri.. if you had to choose someone who you loved, loved you or was perfect, who would you choose? hahaha he always comes up with the most interesting questions... but anyways after that my companion was saying she was a little marriage trunky and she just wanted to go get married! haha so when we told this to our District leader, he immediately brought over the talk by Pres. Kimball for us to read! hahah Then, of course the next day as I was doing my studies, i turned to where i was in Matthew.. and guess what is was about... MARRAIGE!! hahaha oh heavens! So needless to say we have had a lot of marriage talk this week, but don't worry my heart is locked! haha So other that that our week was pretty standard! I am a little stressed out b/c transfers is this week and there is a chance that I will be moving, but i reallllllllyyyy don't want to! And I won't find out until tomorrow if i do or not so i have just been stressing over what will happen if i have to leave! But other than that everything is going so good! I love being a missionary! I know the gospel is true! Hope everyone at home is doing good! Love you! Love, S. Itri

Switch offs

Hello Family!!! Well things this week were a little crazy!!! We had switch offs this week and then we had district conference in Chiang Mai! So I guess I will start with switch offs. I stayed in Phitsanulok and S. Stolworthy came down from Chiang Mai on Thursday. It was a lot of fun to see her again! She came in a transfer before me so we spent some time in the MTC together so it was fun to work with her! But it was also SOOOOOO nerve racking b/c neither of us are super good at the language and i knew that i would have to be leading the area and teaching the majority of the lessons b/c she doesn't know any of the investigators and such so I was scared! But it ended up being way good! I did a lot more than I thought I could. Everything was very simple and basic but it we got through it! haha And we were able to set a goal for B. Jack to be baptized! YAAAAYYY!!! I am so excited for him! It was also a suupperr crazy day on friday b/c we were trying to get some of our members and investigators to go up to chiang mai for district conference and it was just such a head ache trying to figure seats in the van and such, b/c chiang mai is a 6 hr drive we had to make all sorts of arrangements.. But we have this one LA we have been working w/ who wanted to go, but didn't have anywhere to stay and she didnt want to stay alone so i was calling around to everyone trying to get something figured out for her b/c i wanted her to be there soooo baadd, i made over 70 phone calls to try and figure it out! Which was SOOOO much!! I had such a headache after that! and the end result was that she wasnt going :( so i was super sad! but we were able to get 3 of our investigators to go so i was sooo stoked about that! We taught Gap again this week and we are just about finished w/ all our lessons for him, but at the end of the lesson we talked about baptism again and he was like sister, i'm ready to get baptized, like now.... then our member B. Art turned to me and was like come on sister we need to move up his date! hahahaha sooo fuunnnnyyy!! but yes we are going to hopefully have him interviewed in like a week or 2 here! So I am sooo excited for him!!! yay! We also called another LA, B. Boy to try and teach him, but he said he wasn't free that night but he might be free on Sat morning, and that he would call us if he was... which to us meant... no way will i be calling you! hahaha but turns out he called!!! WHHAAATTT !?!? that doesn't happen... like ever... but then we had to find a female to help us, but EVERYONE was gone to chiang mai already or couldn't help!! AHHH SOOO frustrating! So we ended up just having the Elders come and teach him and we kind of just sat in on the lesson with them... hahah but it was a good lesson and i think we are really starting to make progress with him so that's good! Ok now i will move to Chiang Mai! So we had district conference and it was sooo goood!! We had E. Gong of the 70 here and he was just way awesome! we got to spend some good time with him after the meetings were over, but he just was so great. sounds like him and his wife are doing some great work here in asia! This week was sooo good and I just love everything here!! I am starting to get nervous thought b/c there's only about a week 1/2 left of this transfer and i reaalllyyyy do not want to move, but I am scared i am going to have to move and i really don't want to!! i feel like i just started to be able to understand everyone and really get to know the members and such and AHHH i just don't want to move!!! hahaha But we will see!!! Well i think that's about it for this week.... I still don't have any pictures of austin.... just sayin!! But I hope everything is going good w/ you all! Love you!! Love, S. Itri