I'm in the Land of Smiles (Finally)

Sawaadii Kaa Khrap Khrua! 

    Wow! I'm in Thailand and couldn't be happier! Well that is all for this week! Just kidding! Well I'm going to start off by saying that I've never felt as much love from anyone or God than when I'm in Thailand. Being a missionary is the greatest gift I've ever gotten! 

    I HAVE to start off with who my companion is! You will NEVER guess who she is! I have THE BEST TRAINER IN ALL OF THAILAND. You ready? :) I can't wait until you read this next sentence! SISTER JESSIE CARTER! How incredibly awesome is that? The first words at transfer meeting when I saw her was, "I know you!" haha And she is my trainer and probably my favorite person ever! We get along SO well with each other. She is seriously going to become my best friend by the end of transfers. She is the hardest working missionary I know. She is so dilligent and obedient and sets an amazing example for me! Oh my freak! I love her so much. I'm like how did I get so lucky? She is also Sister Training leader so she is a beast! I'm also going to kill her after 15 weeks. Yeah she leaves in October. It's very upsetting. But I'm excited! I'm pumped and everything! 

    Okay I will start when I arrived in this Beautiful place! Wednesday we got in, and then our mission President (President Senior) picked us up from the airport. Well. How stupid the 18 of us were is that we forgot to get our bags from baggage claim before we went through customs. And the first words out of the Seniors' mouth was "Where the heck are your bags?" Bahaha. Well. Yeah! so that was a mess. But we finally got to the mission office where we recieved pictures that I'm sure you guys got by now. The seniors are honestly the best people I've ever met. We hung out with them all of Wednesday and just really got to know them. Awesome people. And rich. They have like 8 homes. Anyways. I love them to death. Once we arrived at the mission home we got lunch. THAI STYLE. Oh my gosh. I have never loved food more than I do here. Spicy tasty. It's all amazing. My digestive tract does tell my taste buds to shut up everyday. But it's worth it. But yeah that lunch was sooooooooo goood! I cannot believe it. I almost died. They have this papaya salad called som tham. It's food from god. I'm sure of it.... Then we got to go Dan Jonesing. That was a crazy experience. Totally handed a Book of Mormon to a lady with a two year old chubby adorable child. She was super receptive to our message. In the small amount of Thai I knew I told her of the importance. It was pouring rain while we were under this little shelter thing. But yeah. It was legit! Then we went to sleep in the hotel. We all crashed at like 8:30. We were so dead from all the traveling. So worth it.

Thursday:

    We woke up, ate some bugs and grass(not really) then we headed to transfer meeting. I was feeling SO weird. Like I could not understand my life and how fast it was happening. The air was so hot but I was expecting it! But transfer meetings took place and we all were wondering where we were going and such. And then. It was time for my name to be called. "SISTER PHELPS YOUR TRAINER IS.....SISTER CARTER...YOU WILL BE SERVING IN.............THE ASEON......IN UDON!!! I'm like no way. Udon? Where they speak Aseon instead of Thai..... (It's the same language, Aseon is way more casual and slang and they don't pronounce certain constants so it's a lot harder to understand) I was like ahhhh no way. I had a dream I would be serving in Udon. The land of the udon noodles. Especially with Sister Carter. The one person I have any connection with in Thailand. It was awesome! WE ARE WHITE WASHING BABY! Meaning, we are both new to the area so we have to scope out new investigators for ourselves. It was so cool. At the transfer meeting I saw everyone whose blogs we stalked. I'm like, hey, you're a celebrity. Or hey, my teachers showed us pictures of you before! Haha.
 
    Anways.... So guess who is also in my house? MMM.... Sister Painter. Weird right? The one blog we stalked. I live with her and her companion! Haha. I love it here... She is so sweet. So on Thursday and Friday we had to stay in Bangkok because Sister Carter had meetings she needed to attend to. So we stayed in her old house with her old companion who was training sister Tilley. It was awesome. Bangkok was crazy!!!! And of course we drove in a taxi on the left side of the road and of course they drive like maniacs!... I've decided that in America, asians aren't actually bad at driving. They are stinking good. Just in america there are dumb americans who don't know how to drive on the wrong side of the road because the people in front of you are going slow. Catch my drift? Yeah. I haven't seen one accident. Ever..... They are pros..... Their little scooters are just so legit. I have to have one.

    Okay. So yes. Thursday. We went and visited sister Carter's investigators and less active members. One member we went to go visit was a less active member and a recent convert which is pretty rare. She is a little crazy. And when we got to her house she had all her electronics and a HUGE pile of money in a bag ready to give to us..... She was like I'm stressed about everyone telling me to stop being so worldly so here is all my stuff. Give it to someone else. And she has read of everything in the scriptures. She was slightly mentally not all there. I felt so bad. She was going through something and Sister Carter was so good she was like ok. We will take it. And then behind the sister's back she gave it to her dad and was like Paa I'm sorry we can't take this. And her dad wasn't a member. And he was so touched. He was like. You guys are such good people. I need to go to your church sometime. It was awesome. We also were teaching this one girl who speaks english very well that was just baptized and Sister Carter told her that she was leaving to Udon. And she is getting ready to on a mission herself. Her name was Sister Kate. And Kate just started balling. It was hard because everyone just loved sister Carter so much. I'm super lucky to have had her as a companion! So then Thursday we went to sleep!

Friday:

    We woke up and went to sister Carters meetings all day and I studied all day then we took our 10 hour bus ride to Udon. Nothing too exciting. 

Saturday:

    This is where is gets super asian.... We get a call Friday night for a fun activity to do Saturday morning. Guess what. WE HARVESTED RICE. How freaking awesome is that!??!?!?!?!?! We woke up at 5 am to go harvest. I cannot begin to tell you how awesome it is! Well. Actually. I likened it unto being a missionary.... First hour it was fun... Then we started sweating. And Walking through water up to our knees. Then It was just hard work.... Haha. It was a ward activity. I wish our ward acitivities were like that. Then we went back to the house. (Which was a tree house) Literally. On stilts. Grates at the top. It made me feel so grateful for what we had. We also took off our shoes to go inside. Crazy. Anyways. They cooked us a traditional Thai meal. It was AWESOME!  Tons of bowls up and down the floor. Grabbed a ball of sticky rice, flattened it, put some mystery meat or some som tham on it. Then we ate.... Right? Pretty unsanitary. But we still ate. We blessed the food with the flies. So I trusted the Lord... Fully. Then we went back at 4 pm. Yeah. We harvest rice that entire time. And we cleaned the house....dead bugs weren't sister Carter's and I jig. So we scrubbed. It's such a nice little 2 story town home. Sister Carter's room and is is so cute. She has a KING size bed and I have a twin...... I had to respect my trainer. I just love her too much I guess. That night I had my first real street food. PAD THAI.... Oh my gosh. There is no such thing as good american pad thai untill you've had Thai food. You would die here! :)

Is this email making any sense? I have no clue. We actually have less time to email than at the MTC. Makes me slightly sad. So I gues I"m writting letters still!!! <3

    So Sunday was the Sunday of all Sundays. Really tested my language skills. We were obviously called up to bear our testimonies first. I was like "My name is sister Phelps.... I'm a greenie" I got people laughing. It was like the only funny thing I knew how to say in Thai. Before the meeting started Sister Carter made me go up to everyone and say hi and get to know them. I couldn't understand a word anyone said. I was like. Ka.. Ka... .And when I would repeat their name. Oh gosh haha. They would just laugh and laugh....I couldn't get them down........haha. Names are so hard for me here. Actually the language is so hard for me here. Hahha. It's definitely a barrier. But it's okay. I'm learning and not worrying about getting frustrated. I'm not going to let myself get frustrated... So I'm learning it slowly but surely..... :) Just pray for my language to get better. haha. But yes. The members here are so faithful they are all working towards one goal. A TEMPLE. They are all in missionary work since about 98% of the people are converts.....It's amazing how nice and much they want to feed the missionaries. They will just send bags of food home with us to eat. So I will never starve. No worries. We were at the church yesterday for 7 hours. I couldn't even tell you why. It went by so fast. I can't believe it's already Monday! We are going to start getting used to the area tomorrow. We are going to baptize this area. We feel God's love for the people of Udon. If we get TWO more Melchizedek priesthood holders we will get a ward in Udon. If we get more wards, we get more Stakes.... And that means! TEMPLES! So please pray for Udon. We need a temple so badly here!!!

    I'm praying and studying my brains out here. It's so meaningful now! I'm ready to get to work and I will let you know how it goes next week! I don't have time to email anyone. So I'm printing them out tonight. And I will get back to you guys next week hopefully! I will tell you a little about Thailand next week when I actually experience it more! Just know that the people here are SO amazing! We ride Tug Tug's around (little seats attached to a motercylce look it up on google)... until we get my bike today! It rains everyday! So awesome with the weather! I love the rain. It's the scariest thunder I've ever heard in my entire life though! Annnnd street food is amazing! And everyone rides motorcycles. And the Thais dress like so crazy I love it. And last but NOT least. The babies. The Babbiesss are the fattest chubbiest and CUTEST things I've ever did witness. That's all. I love everyone of you! Please be safe and Erika! Please have your baby this week!!!!! :) Have fun in Colorado mom! Woop Woop!

Sister Carter and I working in the Rice fields.... Oh yes... I forgot one more thing. Udon is A JUNGLE!!!! We literally live in a jungle. It's so awesome...

Sister Carter and I in a tuk tuk on the way over to email! I left my memory card at home. Talk to you next week!