A WEEK OF TRYING - NOV. 16, 2014

 

Tried SO many things this week. SO. MANY. THINGS.

-Rod-Dii (spelling? Probably not right ha!) They sell these all over in street vendors.. I am not really even sure what they are... It's like a yummy Asian crepe? thing with egg,  banana and sweetn' condensed milk> They are OBSESSED with that here (sweetn'cond. milk- carnation brand stuff?). SO GOOD.

-Tried the spiceiest food i've ever had in my life. I wanted to slice my tongue off and bash my head over and over on the table! AHH. IT  WAS SO HOT. :( Oh my word it was so awful. To help fix it... A sweet member, Benny, gave me a Hall's cough drop.... They eat those things like candy here. Ew! Haha It helped though... Yeah wow... Stay away from the prick>> SPICY.

- Tried some WONDERFUL mushroom/ham/pineapple shiskabobs, Thai donuts >>thought of you Anny! They were SO yummy!!! I also had some strange ball things.. I can't even describe to what they look like really... Because I have no idea what it is them... I also can't describe how disgusting they look. BUT.... They are so good! Haha.. They look kind of like an octopus ball of jelly....Mmmm:)

-We eat fresh fruit every day! My favorite is the pineapple... Oh so good. This morning I had Malagaaw> Papaya. Seriously SO amazing! Heavenly Father knew I wouldn't do so well with all this spicy stuff.. So he sent fruit. :) The guava and asian pears are good too. All of it. Oh all of it. They have little smoothie stands everywhere. They are SO cheap and SO amazing. One of our favorite things to get is a banana smoothie! I like to put coconut in it too. Oh! Speaking of fruit.. Every Wednesday night is Book of Mormon night a the church- where they Elders read a BOM story and have an activity with it. So fun! A lot of our RC's (recent converts) and investigators come! So this past week we rad about Lehi's vision of the Tree of Life. And of his family eating of the fruit- at which point they fave everyone an asian pear!... Hahaaaa So Sister Jackson took a bite of hers.. And then looked down to see a WORM! No- HALF A WORM!! Ahhhhhhh! Welcome to Thailand. Every single day is an adventure.

-We went out as a district to an Italian restaurant this week! I had a bacon and egg pizza. :) Trying new things. :) Is was way fun and the pizza was so good. I ate an entire pizza. It was huge. It was worth it. I really do love the food here... So many way amazing fresh things.. But I won't lie.. eating American food.... Makes my stomach smile.... hahaha Especially PB and chocolate. #fatamericanatheart

- Also this week we had Dairy Queen! I have decided all ice cream here.. Is impostor ice cream... There is just something not right about any of it.. Hahaha In this land they are obsessed with Kit Kats.... They are everywhere. I feel like Kit Kats are like... The Reeses of Thailand. 

Learned and Learning:

We go out inviting 100's of people to go to church everyday. We call the 20 or so #'s that we are able to find on the street over the weeks time and invite and remind them of church again. We keeping inviting even if no one says yes. Why? Because we received a call from a prophet of God to five out time to be obedient.

I would be lying if I were to say that inviting is my top favorite missionary thing to do.. Truly some days it is not so fun or easy. It's not always easy to enthusiastically invite someone to church and then enthusiastically respond to the same response you've heard a ba-jillion times. "I don't have tiiiiiime!" (in my mind I say in a dragon voice: YES YOU DOOOO. RAWWWR) hahah Argh! 

But I will tell you this. We are not just asking people to come to church. Like I said in my last email.. We are planting seeds. Planting seeds in a big piece of seemingly endless and empty land... The seeds are starting to sprout though.. And it is exciting to see.. They are sprouting because past missionaries did their job.. They were were faithfully obedient... 

D&C 130:20-21 "There is a law, irrevocably decreed in Heaven before the foundation of this world, upon which ALL BLESSINGS are predicated. And when we obtain any blessing form God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated."

...Everyday we have the opportunity to see the blessing that comes from being obedient.. Whether we are serving a mission or not. The other day while inviting we came across a seed that had sprouted... It was like a big beautiful lone sunflower that you usually see in dry field of dead weeds.. Or off the side of the free way. Just a little pop of happy among of all the nothingness around it... So the story is.. I saw this woman standing across the way ahead of me.. & I decided to go and invite her. She told me that she had already been to our church! And learned some things! WHOA! Of the 100's of people around us I asked HER. She said that a little while ago.. A Sister STEELE (<3<3<3) gave her one of these cards (pass a long cards).. And that yes, she would be interested in learning more.. Even though that may sound super simple and insignificant.. It was a miracle. It was a blessing for being obedient. For doing what might not have sounded so fun at the moment. Wow. I am thankful to sis. Steele for being obedient and inviting that day she did. I am thankful that Sister Jackson and I were obedient and went inviting as well. That sunflower was a beautiful reminder of the promise that has been "irrevocably decreed"... That God will and does bless us... Each time we are obedient.

 Regardless of what others use their agency to do, as long as I am using my agency to choose the right.. to be obedient.. That is all that matters. It reminds me of a story I recently read in the BOM.. Alma, was called to go preach to the Lamanites.. And was really down trodden and depressed.. Because they were all rejecting him.. Ann angel came to him and said: (Alma 8:15) "Blessed art thou Alma; therefore lift up they head & rejoice, for thou hast great cause to rejoice; for thou has been faithful in keeping the commandments of God from the time which thou received thy first message from Him.." He couldn't force those people to listen or to go to church.. That is all in God's hands.. He did what he could do. He did all he could by making sure he did as we was asked.

I have a testimony of being obedient and of inviting. I really do enjoy going out and talking to people... I love talking to people who THINK I can speak Thai... :) When i totally can't. :) But they think I can and it is awesome. The Thai is coming though, a sliver @ a time. And I am grateful! 

Sunday: Mom. I GOT YOUR HUG! Jessica Hardcastle found me!!! Wow! I was so happy to see her! I recognized her too because there is a picture of her in our house!!! Ah... It was so wonderful to see her.. She was an answer to a prayer that I didn't know I needed. She gave me advice that I know was divine. I feel like she was a very similar missionary as to how I am now. Ah it was so awesome to talk with her! I didn't get to talk with her for very long but just from talking with for a little bit I felt like she became such a fast friend! Please tell her thank you thank you thank you! She has a few things to give and show you! I hope you work on Wednesday with her! :) 

Shout outs: HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ANNNNNNNNOOOO BONANO!!!! YOU ARE 15 YOU ARE 15 YOU ARE 15 YOU ARE 15!! & HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO FROGGY GRANDMA! Love you both! <3 

Anything else to update? 

I love Sister Jackson SO much. 

We made Massaman last night... AND IT WAS SO GOOD.

Those bus's with the wooden floors? I love them... Best air flow... All windows are open :)

Things I saw this week that were... gross hahaha:

Three or Four dead dogs.... I won't go into details..

A girl on the side of the road in shock with a broken arm...

Every day is an adventure.

I love Saphan Sung! 

I love being a missionary.

God is real. 

Love,

Sister Coates

PS. Sister Jackson & I fasted this week with the fam! Thanks for keeping me in the loop Britt. Love you all

PPS. I taught Sis. Jacks the Trolololo song... We sing it everyday.

OUR HOUSE

Our Kitchen

Our Desks

Planting, Planting, Planting

November  9, 2014


Hello from Samphaan Suung!

Okay:

Ear Infection: Feeling 100% better- minus that fact that my ear is still way plugged up.. Way difficult to hear things. I literally cannot understand anything the khonThai say and on top of that I can't hear anything.. SO it's awesome. :)

Sister Jackson: I feel like last time I didn't say too much about my companion. BUT I need to because she is SO awesome. OH she is so awesome! We have SO much fun together. She is such a great teacher. I look up to her so much. She has been here for 17 months... So this is her last transfer! I am her last companion... :( I am kind of dreading transfers. :( But truly she is so so awesome. Love her! I can't remember if I already said this.. But she is from Salt Lake and went to Skyline. Yesterday was her 22nd birthday! We celebrated by eating way good fried eggs Thai style and toast.. With Nutella. :) We got to go to church with the most wonderful members! President and Sister Senior came! Wow.. They brought such a special spirit. President Senior bore his testimony.. It was so simple but SO powerful. I think that every one in that room could feel it. One of our investigators who has been learning for about a year came up to us after church and said.. "I talked to God... He wants me to be baptized this week." Whoa. Is this real life? And then another new investigator that we had given a pass along card too while inviting came! And we more appoinments schedule with him this week!! miracles. miracles. lesmiserbles.  miracles.

Thailand Bangkok Mission (TBM- The Best Mission)

Missionary Life: Everyday it is a rule/requirement to do 2 hours of inviting. Which is asking everyone EVERY PERSON we see if they want to go to church.. Or if they want to be baptized. And hand out pass a long cards, get people's #'s.. We will go to these HUGE HUGE markets where everyone is selling everything... Meats, shoes, clothes, waffles, weird looking treats, junk, more meat, stinky fish, rice, slimy things that I haven't been able to identify, etc.. etc.. And the markets are just PACKED with people. It is crazy! But that is what we do. We ask. We talk to.. EVERYONE.  Typical answers are (say in a very Asian accent :D) "my wawng!" (not free) "my mii waylaa" (i don't have time) "ben is-a-lam" (i'm islam) "ben mus-a-lam" (haha I'm muslim) etc. FUN. Even though majority of people so "No"... We are planting. Planting,  planting, planting. Planting seeds for these people.. Who will all one day hear the gospel.. Who will some day come to church. So even on the days that we don't get any numbers or don't physically see the success.. Heavenly father needs to be exactly obedient.. He needs us to plant these seeds! And from being exactly obedient He will bring us other blessings. We will find other investigators.. Or that less active we have been trying to reach out to will come to church or call us!!.. Just do what you are supposed to.. Even if it is not fun or if you don't know why. You'll be blessed. Just wait and see.

Training: Sister Jackson is an Sister Training Leader. Because of this I got to go all over Bangkok this week with her and the Zone Leaders to training meetings! There was a big meeting with President Senior where all the ZL's and STL's met.. And then for the next 2 days we went to the other districts and passed along President Senior's message! This month is "Bovember the 2nd" The "B" is for baptism.. We have a goal this month to get 2 baptisms per every companionship in the mission. So we can reach our year long goal of 2000 baptisms for the year. WHICH IS HUGE. So in trying to get us prepared for this huge goal... President Senior's message was on Obedience. I got to listen to the trainings 5 separate times.. I think HF really needed me to hear it that many times so that it would stick. My perspectives on obedience have definitely been broadened. There is one thing in my mission life that I for sure have 100% control over in terms of exact obedience.. And that is my schedule. Elder Holland said something along the lines of "If you can show me how your morning studies when.. I can tell you how the rest of your day will go, week, month, mission and life.." No matter what other people use there agency for- what matters is that I used mine exactly how I was asked to. This can be applied to everything. Just do what you are supposed to! Deny yourself of that little bit of extra sleep.. Deny yourself of lingering on one subject. 

Door Knob Miracle: This week... I shut our bedroom door. Not knowing before hand that the door was locked with our phone inside.... At the end of the day we had to have the Elders come break the knob off with a hammer... BUT the miracle of the story... (long story short.. so many cool details about this).. Had we not locked that in there.. We wouldn't have had to go to the Tesco (grocery store) to ask where we could find a copy store.. We wouldn't have been helped by this sweet sweet old man... Who after helping us find the copy store and riding off on his bike- we chased down the street and invited him to church! And he said yes he would come! Not only would he but he said he really wanted to! So.. Cool. Thank you Heavenly Father.

Our apartment.... We shower with lizards. 

Thai Lantern Festival!!!!: Yes this is the "Tangled" lantern festival! WE didn't go to a place where they sent the lanterns into the air BUT we were by a huge pond where they would send out these beautiful flower lanterns out onto the water. Seriously. It was like a dream. So many colors and SO many people. We went with the ward members who are seriously all so sweet. Seriously  cannot understand anything they say.. BUT they are so great. :)

The bus's here have wooden floors. This is an adventure for real!

Shout out to: Reagan and Serena! Happy Birthday on the 13th!! Love you both!

Tiffany. Have you had your baby yet? Do you still have Bronchitis?

November 2, 2014

Hello hello everyone!  Wow where start.

Monday: We left for the airport at about 3:30 ish.. Hopped on the front runner... Which was crazy stressful will ALL of our luggage... I am not skilled with luggage. Thank heavens for Elders. From the front runner we took the trax.. Even MORE stressful. My arms were dead. At the airport we had glorious Cafe Rio. Wow. WOW. It was so delicious... Goodbye MTC food... :P Got to talk with the family! That was great! Got emotional :( Just love you all so much!

Tuesday (was basically non existent- crossed the international date): Flew from SL to LA.. Ew All airports minus SL are gross! :P  That flight was fast and pretty random! I met Stuart Edge! Haha so random. Go look him up on Youtube. Good guy! Boarded Cathay Pacific Airways... so Asian.. And so uncomfortable. Especially when you are you sitting between two Elders. Didn't sleep at all. Ate some super weird Asian airplane food! Landed in Hong Kong.. Were there for like 30 minutes before boarding again.

Wednesday: Landed in BANGKOK! Bwahahaha.. Ah... That was so cool. The second we stepped off the plane we were blown over with this thick thick hot shower water air. YES. so awesome. Loved seeing all the cute Thai script signs and hearing the first "sawatdii kap!".. Ah that was so special. It took us awhile to go through customs and baggage... But was so worth it when while we were walking we saw a huge angel Moroni sign sticking up out of the crowd! And there they were. Ah. I was a little star struck. The Seniors are special special people. They took our luggage and we took a subway to the mission office! Looking out the windows of the subway was like.... a movie. I can't even explain it. Palm trees and rice fields everywhere. Everything looks very close to being 3rd world. At the office! We had lunch... Which was so weird.. Because it was really like Midnight in SL. But we ate lunch. And wow am I in trouble. My poor poor baby mouth! Everything was very Thai. And then Wisan, bless his soul, brought out fresh watermelon and pineapple. Oh my word. The fruit was made in heaven! AND THEN they brought out Mangos and sticky rice.... Celestial glory... Next came orientation. Were given the down lows on money and apartments, etc. Went and got our blood drawn. OW. Tried talking to this cute Thai lady hahaha. That was funny. Came back and had an interview the President. He is. So awesome. And then we went Dan Jones-ing for 20 minutes. Whoa. So fun! I went with Sister Ference- we chose a street and asked every single person we saw (which was a ton) if they were "soncay khaw bood" interested in going to church! Everyone was so kind about it. They either politely smiled and said no- or we would talk with them for a second and get their number! So fun. :) One lady seemed interested.. And Sister Ference was talking with someone else. So i gave it my best shot hahaha.. I ttried to explained that today was my first day in Thailand... But instead I told her it was my birthday.. hahaha too good. So fun! I was SO tired. But it was only 4:30... We had dinner with the Seniors in their BEAUTIFUL beautiful home. We were all so tired. I almost died. We watched a little bit of a talk by David A Bednar.. About bring people back One by One.. And that's what we are going to be doing here in Thailand! We walked to our hotel... Took a speed shower and the second my head hit the pillow I was gone.

Thursday: Transfer meeting! Wow that was so fun! I was the first one to walk in the huge room with all the cheering missionaries! What an awesome feeling that was. We introduced ourselves in Thai, said goodbye to the all the leaving Thais! and received NEW companions. OH. MY. WORD. There is no doubt in my mind that President Senior is SO inspired. SO inspired!! Just first looking at Sister Jackson I could tell that we were meant to be! :P hahaa  We were both sent to Samphan Suun- and we are white washing!! Meaning we both have never been to this area before. It was bitter sweet to say goodbye to my disctrict.. But all of their companions looked like a perfect match and we were all ready to go. :) They had a separate room set up in the church we were in for packages and letters. And I was pleasantly surprised to find 2 letters for me! Wow! Thank you Serena and Karly Willes (who is on her mission right now in Florida!). The letters were both sent at the beginning of October Like 5th and 7th? So it doesn't take to long to get here! Yay! Sister Jackson and I took a taxi to our new home... Oh my goodness it is the cutest little house!! Has a fun mint gate.. And two little hoses for a shower... We have frogs and cockroaches in our outside kitchen area.... AND it is all wonderful :) We are way close to the church and plently of Tescos and 7/11's.. We are taken care of and watched over.

Friday: Happy Halloween! Today was the first real day. We already had 3 appointments set up my the previous missionaries. Only 2 of them showed up. We taught them at the church. Um it was awesome. Sister Jackson teaches so beautifully! I can understand almost everything she says... The Thais are a different story hahaha I'll get the hang of it one day. Not too worried :P That evening Sister Brusso (from Utah <3) Invited us over for dinner- GUESS WHAT WE HAD. CHILI! Ah... That was a tender mercy. Heavenly Father is so cool! The only thing that could have made it better would have been a cinnamon roll. :) That night we went to the church and our investigator Kwaan was interviewed for her baptism and we got know some of the fun recent converts! Everyone here just LOVES to hang out at the church. Super cute!

Saturday: Love studying with Sister Jackson. Had Somtam for lunch.... SO good. I got mine without any prick (no spice).. So good! The food here is pretty good minus the spice. There are a few things for sure that I will have to get used to! I have yet to get sick.. We don't drink any of the water unless it's bottled.. We don't eat anything from vendors unless it is cooked right in front of us or unless it is on good ice (fruit).. The meat here.. Looks rather untrustworthy... hahaha Seriously it all looks super sick haha. We taught an RC today- Fern and her son Fong... Oh my goodness. Fong is Thai Lyncoln. He is SO cute. One day I will get a picture.

Sunday: It was nice and really different going to church today. I sat next to this sweet sweet Thai sister who is 15 ish.. Her name is Ju-lean. Oh.. How i love her and understand nothing she says! Sister Jackson and I made plans after church on how we can create a more reverent atmosphere in sacrament meeting and in the church in general. I don't think these people realize just how sacred and important sacrament is. I was missing my home ward just a little! But am excited to help out these new members and little ward. After church was Kwaan's baptism... That was awesome. She speaks a little English (which was SO nice) She told me that before she was baptizzed she didn't really feel anything.. But after.. She kept placing her hand over her heart and saying.. I just feel so warm! So wonderful.

Everything in Thailand is an ADVENTURE. Everything including their hospitals hahaha... Went the hospital/clinic because I have a awful cold AND terrible Ear Infection.. Seriously those are the worst! Please pray that get back to normal soon! The hospital was so Asian though... Oh my word.. So weird! Hahaha so many of  the nurses wore opened toed high heels and their uniform was one of those little nurse hats and a short skirt. Ha! The physician who saw me spoke pretty good English.. hahah her exam consisted of stick plyer things into my nose- stretching my nostrils open to look inside hahahaha while wearing a huge lamp on her face hahaha. And then she had me lay on a table where she used a little video camera to show me the inside of my ears... Hahahaha what on earth? I was perscribed like... 5 different sets of Antibiotics.. Sketchy.. BUT I know heavenly father is watching over me!  

Love you all!

Xoxo,

Sister Coates

Last dinner with MTC Sisters!