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