New Year's

New Year's Eve, the missionaries came to our house for more food and fun. As you can see in the picture, we also invited Mo and Mukmic. Ray had put together a great jeopardy game with categories like Church History, The Book of Mormon, New Testament, etc. They were very competitive and had a good time. They had to go home at 9:00 so Ray and I welcomed in the New Year together. We pray for a wonderful, successful, happy new year.

We were invited to Sister Panisa's house for lunch on New Year's Day. There was quite a crowd and lots of food. All of the young missionaries were invited, too. We had a great time.

After eating and visiting for a while, the missionaries went back to their normal work. Great missionaries!

                  Sister Embley, Elder Kelly, Sister Sumittra, Elder Darby, Elder Mageno, Sister Tauteoli, Elder Winsor, Sister Hatch, Elder Martin, Elder Chris

Sukan's Baptism..............

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Relief Society Preparedness Activity in Sakon Nakhon

Ever heard of emergency preparedness? Well, it's a topic discussed in the Church in Thailand, too.The district Relief Society presidency was making a concerted effort to encourage the sisters to be prepared to care for their families. They traveled around to each branch, making a presentation and giving ideas on how to be more self-reliant. We accompanied them when they went to Sakon Nakhon. A family from that branch let us come to their farm. It was very enlightening. It definitely taught me that you use what is available to you.

 

 The Farm House

Some of the sisters preparing lunch in the outdoor kitchen.

Cooking fish for lunch.

Our group that came from Udon: Nee, Elder and Sister Saengwein, Mae Muu, Kongpang, Nim, me, and Sombuun

There are clues in this picture that tell you that this is a Relief Society activity--tablecloths on the tables, the little table in the front of the picture is loaded with hymnbooks and-yes, you see correctly--a bouquet of flowers! Doesn't matter that it is outside and we are surrounded by green plants, there are flowers on the table! Love it!

 Teaching by the district Relief Society president on self-reliance and preparedness.

Teaching about Thai-style home canning 

Lunch

Fish, som tum (papaya salad), rice, fresh vegetables and herbs, etc.

and soup--I didn't have any of that, though it was offered to me. 

More ideas of things they could do. This is a rice field after harvest.

Planting another field.

 Growing and picking coconuts

 

Lotus seeds to eat. They taste a lot like pine nuts.

Our hosts were very generous to let us come, and they were presented with a lovely gift basket.

It was a lovely day with many different experiences. I think it helped the sisters to think about what things they could do to be more self-reliant.

We stayed over night in Sakon Nakhon because we were about 120 miles from home, and we planned to visit the branch the following day.

It is always wonderful to meet with the saints!

Ants in the kitchen

This was a common occurrence in our kitchen. If you left anything out, even the smallest crumb on the counter, the ants would find it and share with their friends. I spent a lot of time spraying and then cleaning up ants. Ick!

Coming up the wall behind the dish drainer and across the window then down to where we stored the bread. We had to make sure it was bagged up really tight, but even then sometimes they got into it. We did our share of feeding the critters that lived in our house!

Loi Krathong--Festival of lights

We knew that throughoutThailand the festival was going on--we joined with the people in Udon as they gathered around the lakes to pay respects to the goddess of water and seek good luck by releasing beautiful lotus shaped rafts, decorated with candles, incense and flowers onto the water. They also released big beautiful paper lanterns into the air. If your candle stays lit until it disappears out of sight, it means a year of good luck. The lake and sky were beautiful with lights. It was not as easy at it looked to get the lanterns to rise into the night sky, but very fun!

  We will have a year of good luck! (We are so blessed!)

Thailand 5000

The Mission set a goal to get 5000 people at church throughout the country on September 28. We invited members, less actives, called people on the phone, asked people to invite friends, invited the investigators, and then we did it all over again. It was talked about for weeks. We were really excited to have people join together to have a spiritual experience in church. I think there were between 3700-3800 in attendance across the country. Here were the results in Udon:

Sister Hughes, Elder Pyne, Elder Lim, Sister Brown, Elder Brown, Sister Hatch, Sister Muller, Sister Packard

Branch One--115 in attendance

Branch Two--121 in attendance

We love all of these people so much.

A lunar eclipse

When we came out of the church one night, we saw this eclipse in progress. It was lovely to watch.