serving in the land of smiles: “Well good thing I have mattresses!”

Aquarium!

Dear family,

Life has gotten so much better this week. I decided to stop being stressed and to have fun while working and everything would eventually fall into place. And I quickly realized that was the best way to go. Because not only did Sister Woodbury and I start finding investigators...we also started working with a less active member who works at a bakery and feeds us chocolate lava cakes. Blessings, people. Blessings.

Last Monday on p-day we went to the zoo. I fed a giraffe. I saw an aquarium. There was a rose garden. There was a llama...that wouldn't acknowledge my existence and broke my heart. There were mountain goats and funny little penguins and lots of jungle. It was a good day.

Tuesday we had district meeting. I so enjoy our district leader, Elder Nirut. He is from Chonburi, Thailand and speaks English like he's from America. He also happens to be one of the funniest people I have ever met and every night when we have to follow-up with him over the phone, it turns into one big laughing fest. So district meeting was good. We talked a lot about unity and working together—all ten of us. We also taught English and we got to watch clips from “Tangled” for a listening activity. I wasn't upset about this at all.

Wednesday Sister Reedy and Sister Packard (who are serving in Lampang) were here for switch-offs, but only with Sister Slaugh and Sister Ng. 6 sisters in one house who all love “Nacho Libre” is pretty crazy. It was way fun, and on Wednesday night we ate at a restaurant called The Dukes, which is this awesome American restaurant. I truly believe that I will become very fat in Chiang Mai. And you know, I don't really feel too sad about that.

Thursday more or less happened...there was a lot of contacting.

Friday! We have started a new Sports Night here in Chiang Mai for investigators and members to get together and get to know each other better. It's way fun. We had basketball, volleyball (I was so happy I was going to cry), soccer, ping-pong, badminton, and I also learned some other fun games (like Rabbit, a traditional Thai children’s game that involves hopping around on one leg and looking like an idiot and it's very very fun). So Friday was good. Sister Woodbury and I also found a Cold Stone while we were contacting and there happened to be no line so it wasn't like I couldn't get some. I haven't seen, let alone eaten, Cold Stone ice cream in over 9 months so that was happy.

Saturday - we received instruction to have food storage because of the political craziness in Thailand right now. (BTW, if anyone is concerned, we're all safe. The only way I have been affected is that I am not allowed to wear red or yellow...which is conveniently half my wardrobe, so you know.) So we got food storage set up because our house didn't have one yet. We also did lots and lots of contacting. Lots of it.

SUNDAY! The craziest day in the world. Sundays are always the busiest day as a missionary. Sometimes I feel like I run church haha. You need to make sure people are coming, once they're there you need to make sure they're comfortable, you need to translate into 9824985729837 languages (just kidding, only French and English) and sometimes you're needed for translation in 3 rooms at once and your companion has only been in country for 3 weeks and then two people walk-in so you get to talk to them, too, so that's a fun situation. Then, there is always food and visiting after church is over and you can breathe again after that. Haha.

Yesterday was our miracle day, despite all the craziness that happened. I feel like God always holds out his miracles until the day that I am the most stressed, just to see if I'll keep working, and then He graces me with them. It's pretty wonderful. Not only did we have two walk-ins at church, along with lots of really promising contacts from our contacting yesterday, but we also started working with a less active who works at a bakery on Sundays. We went to go see him and he fed us chocolate lava cakes. I feel this was just as much a miracle as all our new investigators.

This week we will be very busy. It's really exciting. Sister Woodbury was saying, "YAY! We finally get to teach people!" Haha. It will be really exciting for her to be able to really sit down and teach people now. She's a pro at contacting already. Yesterday she was getting numbers from people all on her own! Now she gets to teach them :) Yay!

So that was our week. Long, but with lots of good things starting to happen. It's pretty awesome.

I love you!!!

Sister Hughes

QUOTES OF THE WEEK

Sister Slaugh: "You need electricity to cook pasta."

Me: "Or fire!"

Sister Slaugh: "Well, good thing I have mattresses! Oops, I mean matches!"