Moved but still in Khon Kaen. Week #29

Well a busy week here in Thailand. I'd say Khon Kaen but part of the week was spent in Bangkok! Yes it was transfer week! Did I move... Well technically speaking yes. But down the street to the Elders apartment. I'll get to that though.

So Monday night we got transfer calls and only Elder Johnson was leaving. Sister Grover (my companion) had to go to Bangkok to do visa stuff so we had to go to transfer meeting anyway. Its weird. Each transfer I have had a dream or a feeling about something and well this one was the same. Not fully correct though. I had a dream we got 2 more sisters here in Khon Kaen. And Sister Grover felt something weird was going to happen. So we went to transfer meeting a little apprehensive.

We boarded the bus for the 7 hour ride down to Bangkok on Wednesday. That night I got to go back to Bang Khen!!! :) When I called to let the sisters know we would be staying the night there they told me that my investigator I taught for nearly 12 weeks was getting baptized! That Wednesday night too! So I prayed that the bus would get in early or they would start late and I could make it. Well I missed it... But that's ok. Because when I walked through the gate of the church she came and gave me a big hug and said, "I got baptized!" I said, "I know what took you so long?" Ha ha. But she replied, "I don't know I should've done it a lot sooner." Then right after that my RC came and gave me a big hug. And then just everyone was at the church and I got to see them all! It felt like that feeling you get going home after a long vacation. Even though I was sleeping on the tile floor with no pillow, I was so happy to be there. :)

Then the next day we went to transfers. In a way I was sad because no one from my last district was there. None of the Bang Khen elders were moving and were told they couldn't come. Sister Her was stuck in Laos. And Elder Curtis was too busy being an office elder to talk. But I did get to see a lot of my friends form the MTC! So transfers started and well we now have 2 more elders here in Khon Kaen. There are now 6 missionaries here. So we didn't get 2 more sisters, just 2 more elders. Which also meant we got kicked out of our adorable white house right next to the church. Where did we move? The cluttered gross messy apartment of the elders. That took some time to clean and get organized. I think we got it to a livable point now. Ha ha

So yes a start of a new transfer here. Time to set new goals and figure out how to really help this area!

Helaman 3:25 "And so great was the prosperity of the church, and so many the blessings which were poured out upon the people, that even the high priests and the teachers were themselves astonished beyond measure." We are seeing the miracles and the blessings here in Thailand. I hope that as we continue to share the gospel as missionaries and as members of this church that we will be astonished and recognize all the blessings the Lord has given us. :)

Love you all!

-Sister Nethercott

And here's some questions we asked her:

Did you get your package? Yes! Thank you!!! The stockings are so cute! And it has granola bars and fruit snacks. Thanks! I should've probably mentioned this last time, as missionaries we aren't allowed to chew gum. I didn't think I'd get sent more gum and forgot to bring it up. But if for some reason you were to send me another package, I don't need gum. ha ha But thank you! I really appreciate it. :)

The missionaries here seem to speak a lot at church so I was wondering if you have to give a lot of talks in Sacrament meeting? I haven't had to speak yet. If there are any visitors here they speak. Even if they don't speak Thai. Ha ha they will just send a missionary up to translate. That was pretty funny to watch the reaction of this husband to a khon thai from Texas being volunteered by the stake president to speak. Its like when we have guests over for dinner we always make them pray. This branch is so small they like hearing from someone else. Ha ha But the Stake President can never remember my name so I was only called up as the new missionary. Sister Grover has been volunteered to speak though because he can remember her name. Ha ha

So what has become your favorite lesson to teach?  Do you have a least favorite?  My favorite lesson to teach is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I like it best because I know the most Thai for that lesson and it is easiest to explain. Ha ha My least favorite would be the restoration because they tend to ask hard questions to answer and its hard to explain in Thai. If you take the Thai out I love all the lessons. Ha ha

Do you have a good mission leader?  Does he teach the sunday school lessons or do the missionaries have to teach?  We have an investigator/RC sunday school class that other people teach. This last sunday the lesson was really good. The missionaries would be fine to teach. But it is better for the members to teach because the investigators/RCs have already heard what we have to say, can say, and know how to say about the lessons. Its cool to watch them learn from a khon thai.

Anything fun to go and see on a future Pday? Any elephants around? I was actually going to email this week and request you do some research about that. Ha ha Now that I am here another transfer I want to go see something fun. I haven't really heard of anything to go see.... But there has to be something! I don't know. We are right on the bottom corner of our zone. Anything North East of us we can go to. So if you have any suggestions let me know. :)

How long was the bus ride? The bus ride to Bangkok is about 6-7 hours depending on the traffic.

Did sister Grover get her visa stuff done? What kinds of visa things do you have to do after you get there? She got it done. Im not really sure what it is we do. They have it all organized so we just sign where it is highlighted. Then we go and hand people some money and they take our picture and sign a few things and send us on our way. Its way fast except for the waiting for your turn part. That took forever. Ha ha

 Bus ride to Bangkok. Fun... Or not. Ha ha way boring. As a missionary you can't really do anything to entertain yourself. And reading with how crazy the buses drive... Not a good idea.

Bang Khen!!! Oh how I miss it! That is my investigator that got baptized! :) The best part about being born in Bang Khen is I can go back and stay there every transfer meeting and I know my way around Bangkok. Ha ha I even told the taxi driver no go this way it is faster! 

 Que Pasa

 The bus ride back to Khon Kaen. The other Elders had to go back to Ubon because our new DL didn't know he was moving. So he had to go back and get his stuff. Transfers... Ha ha

 The process of switching houses and our apartment after a whole lot of cleaning... Ha ha

 New apartment

A baptism! Week 28

Well another great week here in Khon Kaen! Where to even start. I guess I'll attempt chronologically. Ha ha

So this week we had a Christmas zone conference which was way fun! That means on Tuesday we had missionaries start coming in from all different parts of the Issan. Khon Kaen is the most central area so yes everyone came here. Tuesday Sister Herrmann got to come and have a sleep over! Ha ha She was in the same room at the MTC so we got pretty close there and haven't really talked since. It was way fun to catch up. Then the next day on Wednesday we had our Christmas conference. We sung some carols in the center of the city. Then we walked over to the Pullmon hotel which is pretty nice. There we had this all you can eat buffet.... It was interesting... I'm pretty sure it gave me what they call here tang sia. Ha ha After the Buffet we headed back to the church for a Christmas devotional. We read and learned about Christ. Listened to a couple of speakers. Played this impossibly hard jeapordy... Or I am just stupid. Ha ha There were all these questions about phrases in the scriptures and you had to know the reference. Well we don't use the bible here because the church hasn't translated it so I am not that familiar with it... And well the team I was on didn't win... Ha ha. At the end of the meeting the missionaries that are going to go home before the next zone conference got to bare their testimonies. It was a lot of missionaries. The spirit was so strong though. It was long, but a really cool meeting. After we got to eat ginger bread. It was way yummy! Oh but the coolest part of the conference (to me anyway) was when the announced Sisters would be going to Laos! My trainer Sister Her gets to be the first Sister missionary in Laos with her companion Sister Holmes! She started working on her visa stuff my first transfer in country but it was top secret. That is why this last transfer was crazy because when President called that morning before transfers, he told Sister Her, "I want to get you to Laos this transfer." And then the craziness commenced. So I am way excited for her but sad I won't be able to see her until she leaves!

Friday was the Kings birthday here which is also when they celebrate fathers day. Everyone wears yellow (which no one thought to mention to me). So sports night turned into the members taking us over to the giant market they have set up for the silk festival. There we got to watch fireworks! It was cool. I took a cool video but still can't figure out how to upload/send those.... Sorry. Ha ha. 

Sunday our investigator got baptized! That was a really cool experience to be part of. She has been coming to church since April. She was really easy to teach because she has pretty much learned everything by going to church. And she speaks pretty good English. Ha ha. So this investigator was in the ICU for pneumonia and was told she was going to die within a couple days. She had a friend in Oregon who is a member of the church and I think she had her ward pray for her or something like that. By the miracle of prayer she was healed. As a thank you our investigator decided that she was going to go to church. Well she went nearly every Sunday after that. She has such a solid testimony and understanding of this gospel. Its amazing. Another of our investigators attended her baptism. After it ended I went and talked to her and she was crying. I asked what she thought and she replied, "I am so happy for her. And I just feel so good." So hopefully she can find time in her busy schedule to meet with us because she has already accepted a date to be baptized too! :) Oh and this is great. So she is an older lady. When we taught her earlier this week I asked her what she thought about this church. Her response was, "I like this church because it has chairs. You have to kneel at the wat. Kneeling is kind of a problem for me."  Ha ha I guess that is one way to find the true church.

This week I want to share a scripture that we read during the zone Christmas conference. 1 Nephi 11 talks about the birth of Christ and I would recommend reading it this Christmas season. But verse 22 says: "And I answered him, saying: Yea, it is the love of God, which sheddeth itself abroad in the hearts of the children of men;wherefore, it is the most desirable above all things."

God loves all of His children. That love is more than we can even comprehend. Who doesn't desire to feel more love than is even comprehend-able?

Well I hope you have all had a good week! Love you!

-Sister Nethercott

Baptism day! 

This is her friend from Oregon.

Our investigator that was baptized took us out to eat this week. It was delicious!!!

The Christmas conference. Friends and our zone! 

The kings birthday

Pretty sunset we couldn't resist taking a picture.

 Pics I stole from Sister Grover

Slamming!

Brecklyn often talks about slamming and has pictures of slamming. Once we got to KL, we realized we could buy TimTams too and had to try slamming. They are delicious! Here are the instructions if you can ever find TimTams. I think they're from Australia.

Thanksgiving Week #27

Another great week here in Khon Kaen!

I apologize for not writing last  Monday but we headed up to Udorn for sports day with the zone. We took some sketch bus that took longer than we expected to get there. We played a game of soccer with the zone. Grabbed some pizza and then headed home. ha ha Not too eventful or exciting.

This week we did a lot of contacting. I was blessed in Bang Khen to never have an investigator stand us up for a lesson. We were called a couple times to have lessons canceled but never actually stood up. Here in Khon Kaen that is a little different. This week one of our investigators didn't show up so we called them after waiting a while. They said they weren't coming. Miraculously the family we are teaching just showed up because they wanted to come to the church so we got to teach them instead! Way cool.

This week this giant market came. There is normally a small market every Saturday night. It was some special occasion so all these other people from all over Thailand came and set up shop. It was crazy! There was even like a carnival in the middle of it. So we thought lots of people lets contact there! Too many people. Ha ha It was so crowded.

Oh and this week was Thanksgiving! Here the members celebrate it and call it Day of Thanking God. So they said it started at 6. I thought that meant the eating. No that meant showing up with the food to cook. So we made them some mashed potatoes and gravy. It was pretty funny with some of the things we had to improvise on. For example they don't have potatoes mashers here or blenders. We used this wood stick that they use to mix up their papaya salad. And then we ate sticky rice with the left over gravy. Surprisingly it tasted really good. But the food was funny. They had some really good grilled chicken legs that had a teriyaki-ish taste to them. They had fries and chicken nuggets. Pancakes. Kind of just a bunch of random food that people all brought. Ha ha It was great though! It was fun being with the ward and the Branch President shared a few words and we sang some hymns. It made it seem more like a day of thanksgiving than just eating and football. 

Oh I can tell you about my motorcycle accident now since I didn't have the chance last week. So I was following behind Sister Grover riding our bikes down the road. All of a sudden this motorcycle pulls out from behind a car planning to check the traffic and turn into the road. There was absolutely no time to stop, just scream. Ha ha So I ran right into the motorcycle. My bike hit the front of it and stopped, I kept going. I landed on the other side of it somehow, with the coconut water I just bought all over me! I was wet and sticky and a bit in shock. The two people on the motorcycle just stared for a minute, didn't say anything and then drove off. When I picked my bike back up, turns out it popped my tire. So Sister Grover and I are just kind of standing there like what just happened and this nice old lady comes up and asks if she can help with anything. We were just like, the bike is broken. She points right next door and says that guy can fix it for you. So by some miracle the accident happened about 2 ft away from a guy that fixes bike tires. What a blessing. He patched it up in maybe ten minutes for less than a dollar. Then we were back on our way. I came out of that accident without a single scratch, which is shocking considering my accident a couple days before that didn't involve a motorcycle and I left with a bloody knee. Ha ha Since then I have learned that my front brakes are broken... I am not sure what to do about that one. I still have back brakes so I guess I am fine. Ha ha

Now for the spiritual thought of the week. Ether 12:6

 "And now, I, Moroni, would speak somewhat concerning these things; I would show unto the world that faith is things which are hoped for and not seen; wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith."

Sometimes it is hard to have Faith because we aren't seeing anything come from it. Sometimes when we don't get answers we assume something doesn't exist. Heavenly Father likes to test our faith. He likes to know how strong our faith actually is. Sometimes it will take a long time to see the results but Heavenly Father is always there listening. He knows what is best. Just hold out faithful and everything will work itself out in the end.

I hope you have had a good couple of weeks! Love you!

-Sister Nethercott

The giant spider in the church. Elder Finlayson tazed it 

This is the stick we mashed the potatoes with. Surprisingly they were actually really tasty. :)   

Thanksgiving dinner. It was pretty late by the time food was finally cooked so its pretty dark... Sorry. And I didn't think to take a picture until after we had eaten some of our food. Ha ha oops. 

We have Dinasours in Khan Kaen too... Not just galasine. Ha ha This is the park we attempted to contact at this week. Rode out to it, not a single person there. Ha ha I just like to always remember the mormon message wrong roads in these situations. 

This the the talad that we attempted to contact at. So many people and stuff everywhere! It felt like I was inside but it was just on the street. 

Busy! Week #26

We didn't get a real letter this week, mostly just answering our personal questions. She asked us to bold our questions in our emails so they'd be easier to find and answer. haha She must be busy!  She did send lots of pictures which we love!

My knee is feeling better. Just he scab is itchy. Ha ha but I got in a motorcycle accident last p-day. Sorry but probably won't have time to tell that story.

As for the people we are teaching. Nothing much to update. NO one could meet with us this week. It was a fast week full of long hot days of contacting.

We found all the LA's that I think we will be able to find. One of them has now come to church 2 weeks in a row now. She works on Sunday so she sneeks out right after the sacrament. But she is coming!!! The former we picked back up was out of town this week and couldn't meet with us... He might be going back to former. I am not sure how committed he is. We are supposed to have a member present every time we teach. If it is a male we have to have a female member. It is way hard here in Khon Kaen because all of the members work and learn all day and never have free time to help us. In Bang Khen it was so easy to get members in the lessons. We always teach at the church though. And short notice is something the missionaries can't really control. We don't know til last minute when investigators can meet with us. Its crazy for us too. We are so grateful for the members that help though. I plan to try and help the missionaries as much as I can when I get home.

This wat is about a 10 minute bike ride away. Way cool and free! Last Pday. 

This is what being a sister missionary looks like. Ha ha 

Our lovely reflector vests. Ha ha 

This is in the middle of the roundabout. Imagine if this was in the round about by draper park? Thats really what its like. 

Fixing the ceiling

The squid I tried... Not too bad but not something I would ever crave either. Ha ha

the Elder's baptism