FHE last week in Lad Phrao

 Happy Birthday Sister Sawangwong!

 Chocolate Ville

 Chocolate Ville fire truck

 Playing "degraw"--A Thai sport kind of like hacky sack and soccer mixed, 

using a ball made out of bamboo or something.

 With Sister Nat

 Sanding down Sister Ying's gate.
She gave the Elders her sunglasses to wear. haha

View from our apartment. The hospital is across the street.

 This is the soy that our church is on.

Waiting for the bus

A New Year, new goals, baptisms and boat rides

Hello Familia!

This was a great week! First and foremost, Sister Boat got baptized yesterday! It was a really wonderful day! She looked so happy and beautiful and bore a really nice testimony. So so happy for her! Sister Boat is a 20 year old college student here in Bangkapi. She loves to dance and she's just way sweet and cute! So, that was definitely the highlight of the week!

Second highlight: Yesterday as I was standing by the front door at church welcoming members I looked out at the parking lot and saw BROTHER BURGESS walking up the sidewalk! I almost died I was so excited and shocked! He came to visit Thailand with his wife and her family and they stopped into Bangkapi to come to church! I definitely lucked out. It was soooo fun to see him and talk with him. They are doing really well!

So, yesterday was pretty amazing!

Bangkapi is so awesome. I love it here! I love the area, I love the ward members, and I love our investigators. Sister Sawangwong is doing really well! Saturday was her birthday and she turned 23.  We celebrated with a cake from 7/11 and a service project. haha

Our Elders here are awesome! We have four specifically assigned to Bangkapi and two that serve in Lad Phrao, but are in our Bangkapi district. I am really lucky to be working with all these awesome, hard-working elders. 

Okay, so last Monday we went to an "ancient city" called Ancient Siam! It's basically this huge park with big replicas of the major structures, cities, etc... in Thailand. Way fun! We met up with the Srinacharin Sisters and rode beach bikes through the park, took pics, picnicked. It was so relaxing and soooo much fun.

After p-day ended we taught a lady that we contacted into from Mynmar. She speaks Thai pretty well, but we had pamphlets in her language for her. We'll see what comes from that!

On Tuesday we had a great district meeting. We discussed our goals for January. We figured that since this is a happening area, we have a really high functioning ward, and there are eight companionships, we are shooting for 16 baptisms this month. It's going to take a ton of faith and work, but I really believe it can happen. 

Okay, Tuesday night was fun! The ward had a big count-down party for the new year! They set up a little Karaoke stage and invited everyone to sing. They had a ton of food and decorations. It was so fun to talk with everyone and get to know people better. While we were all sitting eating and listening to the performers the sprinklers went off, soaking pretty much everyone and everything! haha  Luckily everyone thought it was hilarious and started running around laughing and trying to shut them off. One lady got completely drenched. She was eating a piece of toast and it literally disintegrated in her hand. She got such a kick out of it! haha  Just to add to the excitement of the night!

New Years Day was pretty much dead. No one could meet, so we went inviting all day long with the Elders. And Sister S. wanted to take us to this restaurant, but got lost and we all ended up at this weird shrine thing in the middle a forest. So confused. Still not sure what happened there.

Grandma Lynn will be very pleased to know that I am now teaching piano lessons! I'm teaching a recent convert named Nat. I drew out all the notes and a keyboard and labeled it. She's memorizing it. She can also play the bottom part to "Heart and Soul." She's persistent and loves it!

On Saturday we went with the Elders and finished up painting Sister Ying's house. Probably the worst paint job I've ever seen in my life, but she was thrilled with it! It was fun going out there to help her.

We had zone sports day in SapaanSuun at 8am this morning at a super nice international school. We played tennis, basketball, soccer and football. Right now I'm emailing from SapaanSuun! Way fun to see lots of friends!  While we were there a girl's basketball team was practicing (about 15 years old). They wanted to play against us. Umm.... I do NOT play basketball. haha  But we tried. Those girls are pretty darn aggressive! It was fun, but I looked like a fool! Fun morning! Later today we are going to some big market somewhere. Fun day!

On the way to sports day we had a great conversation with the taxi driver! He agreed to come to church this Sunday.

I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH! Thank you so much for your hard work, your love, and support!

Love,

Liz

 Sister Boat's baptism

 Brother Burgess!

Happy New Year!

 I drew those letters. haha

 Setting up for New Years Celebration

With Nadia!

A YW in the ward drew our district! I am now an anime character!

 Rainbow Bridge

 Ancient Siam

 River tour of the Royal Boats

A Bangkapi Christmas...and a cat 'n run

Hola Khrccbkhrua!

Wow, it was amazing to see your faces and talk with you last week! I agree, best Christmas gift ever! You all look so great and I absolutely loved that time to talk with you!

This week has been great! Not a ton has happened since Wednesday, but there are a few notable things!

So, after Christmas P-day ended we had yet another ward Christmas party for the singles. It was really fun. Someone read from Luke 2, they had a fake fire playing on the TV, we sang Christmas songs, and then played some games. It was a great Christmas, definitely one I'll remember! So strange to be away from home and not have the whole big build up to Christmas, but the celebrations we had were really special and I really felt the Christmas spirit with the ward members here. And of course the Skype chat!! Cannot top that!!

As far as investigators go: We have three that are progressing really well!

The first is N. She is about 25 and was found off of a street contact and is progressing so well! She's learned just about everything and she really has a testimony. Unfortunately, her mom booked her a plane ticket home for the 3rd of January to return for a couple months.She tried to change the date of the ticket for later so that she could be baptized on the fifth. However, her mom couldn't change it. So, she'll have to wait until she returns (prob in February) to be baptized. There are no churches down in the south where she's from. I'm sad she's leaving, but we'll keep in good contact over the phone while she's gone. I think she'll stay strong!

Our second investigator is NL. She has a baptismal date for the fifth and she is learning well! She's already Christian and is already familiar with a lot of things we teach. She's accepted everything well and is on schedule to be baptized!

Our third investigator is named B. She's 20 years old and attending college. Super cute! She has learned almost everything and is excited to be baptized on the 5th as well!

It's really exciting! The elders also have an investigator ready to be baptized on the fifth so that will be an awesome day!

Also, yesterday we had 4, yes FOUR, investigators at church! I was so happy that they all came and had a great experience. I have never ever had four investigators at church! This was a miracle for sure! Also, yesterday when we went inviting we were able to talk with a lot of people and get a lot of numbers. Yesterday was just really great! Oh, while we were inviting I saw a falang so I went to go talk to him. He's this retired man from Texas who's lived here for a really long time. I tried to tell him about our message, but I literally could not do it! Every time I would start to explain something it would come out in Thai. I'm pretty sure when I get home from my mission I'm not going to be able to help the missionaries because I won't know what to say in English! haha It's just funny- I never thought it would actually be hard to teach in my own language. But I guess since we learn to be missionaries in Thai it makes sense. But it made me laugh. He was not interested, probably because he couldn't understand what on earth I was talking about. However, he told me he has some great devout Mormon friends in Salt Lake but has lost touch with them and wondered if I knew them! haha The world of Mormonism is small, but I'm afraid it is not that small! He told me they lived on Smiley street. Is anyone familiar with Smiley street? 

Anyway, I am really blessed to be serving here in Bangkapi and I LOVE IT!!!!! I love the ward, I love my companion, I love our investigators, and I love this work! I have really felt the spirit a lot lately and it's really helped my testimony grow!

I love you all so much!

Liz :)

p.s. This week Sister Sawangwong ran over a cat with her bike. Cat was fine. I could not stop laughing, I've never seen that happen before!