serving in the land of smiles: “What is going on with this guy?!”

UBON ZONE. We're doing work. This zone was once known as the zone that never saw baptisms. : )

Dear Family,

It has been a good week. We had Zone Conference! Which always means it's a good week :)

We also had a lot of rain. A LOT of rain. I think the rainy season is upon us, folks.

Well, sit back, listen up, and enjoy the updates of the week.

Tuesday was English class. We played "Do You Love Your Neighbor" which resulted in screams of laughter, oy it is so funny. We contacted in the rain...it was wet. And everyone was paranoid that we would get sick. Haha.

Wednesday was ZONE CONFERENCE! HOORAY!! We got up super early and took a van out to Ubon where our whole zone met together with the Seniors. They are super. For breakfast they brought us Krispy Kremes from Bangkok. Have I mentioned that it was a really good day? In our training we learned about the importance of teaching and testifying of Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost and the importance of teaching and testifying of the blessing of repentance. Teaching about a loving Heavenly Father who is compassionate and who loves each of us, teaching about the majesty of Jesus Christ’s message and mission, and teaching about the role of the Holy Ghost testifying of truth is one of the greatest privileges as a missionary that I can have helping people to understand and to embrace the gospel. It was so good.

For lunch we had Mexican food. Burritos, people. It's a thing that doesn't really exist in Thailand, so when you have it...you treasure it. In the middle of lunch, President Senior got up and left with Elder Astle and Elder Clarke on some bikes. They came back with Tim Tams and milk for everyone. We took a few minutes and had a Tim Tam Slam as a zone. (Tim Tams are chocolate covered wafer cookies—you can suck milk through them and then they start to disintegrate so you have to slam it in your mouth. Hence the name "Tim Tam Slam." It's kind of a mission tradition.) It was so good to see everyone in our zone. Elder Astle, Elder Passey, and Elder Hill from my MTC district are in this zone, too! It was so exciting to have that mini reunion.

I think one of the best things I learned from Zone conference, though, was this: Nothing in my life has been more perfectly calculated and planned by God than my mission. This has been confirmed to me over and over again, and I am so grateful to know that God's hand is in every aspect of not only my life, but in the lives of everyone around me. Sister Croft and I, at the beginning of the transfer, started this thing called "Gratitude Minute" before we would do our nightly planning. We changed it this week to "The Hand of God." We spend a minute discussing how we saw the hand of God in our day. It's a wonderful little activity that helps us see the good that God is working in our missions.

We spent a lot of time this week trudging through the rain and mud here in Sisaket. It's rough, in a country where most everyone does not like rain. But here is my favorite thing that happened this week. While visiting a less active church member on Friday night, we were stuck in mud and gunk and we were wet and cold. (I know, who knew you could get cold in Thailand? Maybe I'm cold blooded? I don't know.) Anyway. We took a second to look around at where we were and do you know what we saw? For the very first time in my life, I saw fireflies. FIREFLIES! They were so beautiful! Little sparkles in the air around me.

This week there were 6 more baptisms in our branch. Hooray! Two more of the little girls got baptized. Two more Cambodians joined the church and bore their testimonies in Cambodian. Sometimes I think I can almost understand it, but other times I am completely lost. : ) A brother with awesome crazy scientist hair got baptized, and a girl named Toffee who was so cute and nervous. It was a good day yesterday.

Well, that was the week! I want to wish all the fathers out there a happy happy Father's Day! I sure do love my daddy :)

I love you, family. So much!!

Love,

Sister Hughes

Quotes of the Week

Elder Bassett: "If I had to live in a time period where I had to be an executioner, it'd be the French Revolution."

Elder Angkham (about his umbrella that kept closing on him) : "What is going on with this guy?!"

The Tim Tam Slams

MTC district reunion with President Senior . . . I love how incredibly awkward this photo is. My heart delights in it.
Me, Elders Hill, Passey and Astle, President Senior.

Me and Sister Petersen and the flowers. Sister Peterson came up to me at Zone Conference and she said,
"Sister Hughes, I've got to get something off my chest. I read your blog before I came into the field.
Ok, I said it. I hope that doesn't creep you out.” Haha. I love that girl.

District Pizza Day for P-Day! It was buy one, get one free . . . maybe we got a lot. It's fine.
A member from America bought them for us. Haha.

Elder Hartman playing badminton in the rain. So good.

THE BUG WE FOUND IN THE CHURCH. WHAT IS IT. Some of us think it's a scorpion. Others think it isn't.
Whoever can find out what it is gets a gold star. When Elder Angkham squished it in a door jamb, it smelled like vinegar. Weird.