I MOVED!

Whats good!

    I MOVED!!!!!!!! I really did.... Oh my was this a week. Monday we get transfer calls right after emails. I'm staying in Chiang Mai. phew. I was NOT done in that area. I was like sweet. I'm stoked. Bam. Monday night I get a call at FHE. "Hey sister Phelps you're moving. Good Luck".... I was ticked haha. I was like, 6 weeks in heaven? Not enough time. The Whole district except one zone leader white washed out.... So we got all of our things packed and left wednesday. We took a sleeper train....14 hours:) yay... 4 of the missionaries in our district finished there mission so they all left tuesday to have pday in Bangkok. I was definitely sad to leave sister Somboonit...such a sweetie. 

    I was freaking out. As soon as I got the transfer calls. I was like. NOOO i love the north so much. I just want to be here forever. Then I heard Chiang Rai sisters were transferring out. I was like. Perfect. I'm going to chiang rai. And guess what? I MOVED TO CHIANG RAI! :) So Seriously I went 4 hours north of Chiang Mai. Isn't that hilarious? I just went off on a switch off here 2 weeks ago so I'm already a little familiar with the area.... it's funny I took all my crap down to bangkok and back up to chiang rai... Too funny. But I am in love. This is a NEW area. Sisters opened it last transfer for the first time in 10 years. So it's been barely touched by sisters and oh my gosh. I love that. No one knows us. The church is new and I still get to talk to soooo many christians. WE ARE IN A RENTED BUILDING. Finally. No church building. It literally has the giant garage doors over the doors that we open and close every time.... So legit. Our Baptismal font is like a jecuzzi you have to climb into. I took a picture in it but I can't remember if I send it or not.... we will see..... SEriously. It's just the coolest feeling... And it's so easy to get people to come to church and get a book of Mormon. Because... everyone is seeking for truth...These last couple of days have been the best of my whole mission. 

    My companion is Sister Holmes.... She is a STUD. She is from sandy utah and just a fire ball. She is just barely out of her greenie stages but holds herself well. I'm very impressed. She tells me she has self confidence issues in the language but serieously would never guess. She holds up well in lessons. Definitely a companionship I'm loving so far. She is my most hard working companion. We literally don't waste a single second. Always calling our investigators. Contacting hard on the streets. We don't usually take our hours for dinner and lunch. Just because we don't have time. I'm loving it. So engulfed in the work. Finding sooo many people to teach. And we are seeing SO many miracles. 

    One miracle that is so worth sharing is friday we had a sports day with the ward and we ended up getting there a little late because we were contacting and then we after we had gotten there we could only stay for like 45 minutes because then we had an appointment with an investigator that was for sure going to stand us up. She stopped answering her phone and we really knew it was going to pit. But... we thought that we should still go to the church and just get some more street contacting done. So we get to the church. And Sister Holmes has the keys so she starts locking our bikes up and this guy passes the church so I stop him and talk to him and he is GOLDEN. Searching for truth wants to learn about the book of Mormon. Going to church and bringing his friends... Then as I'm talking to this guy a girl shows up on her bike and stops sister holmes and asks her if this is a christian church and tells her right away that she wants to be a member and what she has to do to be a member. So we took her to the baptismal font showed her the church and she was sooo excited. Her name is JuneJune... she is just a miracle and she brought her sister to church yesterday too.... She is getting baptized next sunday... We are soooo excited.. Miracles are just happening to those obedient and willing to listen to the spirit:)

    AHHHH. I have to tell you. I started my 6 months to sexy a week early..... I thought. Since it's a new transfer it's a new start.... So my comp hates to work out. Except she is a total babe so she doesn't need to. But she has been a doll and gone running with me in the mornings and this morning was abs and arms. She is such a champion and she has more than a year left of her mission. Oh I love her. The first day we met she sat on my lap in a taxi and slammed my hand in the door. It's a great copmanionship already:) 

    GUESS WHAT.... I gave my FIRST talk in Thai yesterdady.... We get in on frieday and then that day we get a call from the branch president telling us we will be giving talks that sunday. Oh poop. I was soooo scared. I don't have the right vocabulary for a talk. When you are giving a talk you have to use a set of higher words that I know when I hear but it's so hard for me to use... But I just ended up not using them. It was fine. I am so happy with my language where I can start to be myself. I got people laughing in the beggining and said what I wanted to say... Oh it was fun... But I was very nervous to give a talk:) 

    In our area we have a greenie. I'm so excited. There are only 4 missionaries here. My district leader was in the older group that me in the MTC. So he is only 6 weeks older than me.... but he is a boss. And now he is training... Elder Calderone is training elder Tacheuchie.... He is japanese. But it's fun to see little greenies again being so awkward they don't know how to handle themselves haha... More of my elders in my district are training again. I'm so happy... And most of them are distrcit leaders.... I'm sooo loving my area... I swear my areas just keep getting better and better..... HURRAH FOR ISRAEL...

    Anyways. The church is true. I LOVE bearing my testimony and calling others to come to christ in this little small town. Today we are riding ostirches.... :) yeah... apparently if you put a bag over their head they stop and don't do anything.. calm and wont move and then you take the bag off and they are like bulls.... So I cant wait... There are some really cool sites to see here.... There is a white wat(temple buddist) that is the talk of the country. and Elephant ridings across a river AND holding giant anacondas. Oh yes. I have a companion just as worldly and white touristy as me. We are killing these pdays with exactness.... 

phillipians 4:13

Love

Sister Phelps

saying goodbye to our rc's in Chiang mai

sister Stack

this is our 4some.... we love each other the best in the whole mission. We are told "we just get it."

Saying goodbye to sister Somboonit

6 months to sexy...started

 we found and bought grandma dresses.....

บัพติศมา That actually took about 5 minutes to spell.

    But just like the subject line says. WE HAD A BAPTISM!... It was a MIRACLE.... seriously. May, our little investigator we found the first week sister Somboonit and I were here got baptized yesterday. She had some problems with commandments but gave them up and decided to get baptized.! She is SOOO cute. It wasa amazing. Sister Somboonit's last sunday was yesterday and Sautrday we went and visited May because we didn't know if it was possible to get her an interview before Sunday but she was totally ready we just didn't get the chance to talk to her much that week because of the water festival..... Anyways. We pulled it off. She got interviewed that night and she just beamed with excitment. I literally love that girl. We have worked so hard these passed 6 weeks with her and it was cool that Sister Somboonit was here for the baptism as well. She was all smiles on Sundayy..... Ugh. I love her so much. These are the moments of why I am a missionary. 

    The water festival was obviously exciting on monday. We bought water guns and just killed everyone. We went to this walking street of tons of people and it was so fun. The freaking water was soaked with ice so it was ice cold water. It was a little heart wrenching but so fun to be freaking hot with people just throwing water all over us. Even if the water was dirtier than the streets.. and I accidently had my mouth open when a man threw a bucket of river water all over me... yum...

    The work in Chiang mai got really slow all of a sudden. I think it's because of the water festival last week.... So that was a little sad and after a couple of days of being stranded in the house because we weren't allowed to go play it was a little hard getting back into the groove of working with our investigators. But yes. Still have about 2 progressing investigators so that should be fun no? We are going to do a lot of inviting with my new companion. I hope I stay here.... We get transfer calls today. I'm not ready to leave. But I am pretty positive I'll be senior companion for the rest of my mission. Kind of a bummed because this last 6 weeks was just a blessing........

    I had a funny accidental thai slip up this week. I mean I have many. But this one was my funniest... I lost my planner and I was SO sad... Literally almost started to cry. My whole life. Just gone in a matter of seconds. And I just laid on my bed pouting because I was just too upset. haha. Oh the things as a missionary. And sister Somboonit comes in and is like. Woah. Whats wrong... And instead of telling her that I was sad I didn't have my PLANNER.... I accidently told her I was sad I didn't have my PERIOD. She was sooo confused and It took me a good second to figure out what I said..... Then I laughed and realized that God still loves me and has a sense of humor....

    I wish I had more to say. But not really. I haven't been sleeping well at nights because my mattress is a piece of fabric with springs under it. Exciting...So that has been a really big struggle this last week is the lack of sleep...but I've been SUPER blessed that waking up at 6:30 has been super easy.... i know lots of missionaries that struggle with that and I thought for sure I would be one of those but. Thank goodness for thai food that gets me up the next morning asap to use the restroom:)

    So just like Uchtdorf said in his talk that we need to be grateful in our circumstances of our trials and so I'm grateful the lord helps me stay exactly obedient through thai food even though I get no sleep. 

    Well I should be getting my death papers this week. That will be a weird moment....and transfers is here and I'm really really sad to leave Sister Somboonit. She goes down to Bangkoktomorrow night and I stay here with sister Woodbury (Who I freaking love) till Thursday.... IF one of us gets transfered. If we don't get transfered we both will stay and work in our area for transfers which I won't complain because our area needs to be worked in this week... But MORAL of the story is I love sister Somboonit and she has helped me grow in ways I don't even understand. She has the most extroidanary faith and prays like a beast. She has taught me a lot and I will miss her dearly! Ugh! I will miss just throwing her over my shoulder. Okay hilarious. She was riding her bike in the dark and didn't see a small baby bike in the road and totally fell over it. She got hurt but it was totally funny..... Good thing she is carriable..... 

    I love this work. It's the only true work. I was thinking if Heavenly Father didn't send out his first missionaries with Joseph Smith, this dispensation would've died along with all the other prophet dispensations. This day and age is crucial, I think there needs to be a LOT of righteous in this world to help out when Christ comes again and that day is soon so the need for missionaries in THIS dispensation is crucial..... Anyways..... Missionary work is true. I love it.

And I love you all too :) Thank you for your support as always!

 

-Sister Phelps

also this is chiang rai's baptismal font....it's like a mini pool. it's sooo freaking legit....... I realize this may be sacriligious. But we did used to pretend to baptize each other in our pool when we were kids.... So I thought. nahh.... and besides... I thought this picture was better than bringing my right hand to the square. 

our sweet may

I realize how large I look in one of these pictures... haha. I swear... I am fat... but not that fat...... Sister Somboonit agrees....... But yes...  the french family with the kids that speak fluent thai but the dad speaks none...

Tim tammed slam after our baptism.... it's a great way to end her mission

Me and the lovely sister Woodbury...or sister Wolverine. I love this girl

I love these pictures.... She was personally studying and I just decided to attack her with pictures... She literally dissapeared. And then she told me I was heavy haha. So I got off.....

This is a picture drawn by our RC Tat that got baptized last month. She is sooo cute..... I love the english words...

SAWADDII JOW!!!!

SAWADDII JOW!!!! (Dilect of the north)

    It's HAPPENING. The water fight! Song Grum is the name of it. Also It was christmas! Oops I meant general conference. So good! ALSO HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD AND LANDON! may all your wildest dreams come true.... 

    So this water festival is the craziest thing in the entire world. Chiang mai is built around a square. it's probably a half square mile perimeter(To be honest... i don't know if i got that math right.) But the square is the major source of getting out and inside the square. its a major road with tons of cars...Okay you following? So, the square is the best place to have a water fight. Still following? The senior couple invited us over for dinner after general conference and they live outside the square and we live inside the square....... We had this rule to avoid the water fights on the sabath but that was a funny story. All of us missionaries in our sunday best make our way to the square. Only with a little bit of water on us. We get to the square. Traffic. Car to bumper filled with trucks and people in the back of their trucks with buckets and buckets of ice cold water and baby powder.... GAME OVER..... I thought I was going to die haha.  buckets of ice water pouring on me. The worst was when we were stuck behind cars and the power water guns would just spray the crap out of you. Oh my heck just google it. So fun so crazy. But actually my favorite was I ended up just getting stuck in some traffic and I just look up next to me with two large men in the truck bed with a bucket of water and I just smile at them and they smiled back and bam. Just covered me in water. I couldn't go anywhere. Broke that rule of avoiding song grum on sunday... We show up to the senior couples house soaked. haha. It was classic. This holiday is seriously insane. Chiang Mai is the best palce to be for it too. Haha. Classic. A member is going to take us around in her truck today. We are excited little missionaries. Water fights while wearing name tags? My job is too cool!

    My week other than just talking to you on wednesday hasn't changed we just watched conference and got spiritually fed! Oh so delicious. Seriously. It really was a huge blessing. During conference I reflected on mylife and thought. Wow. Right now I'm probably the BEST person I have ever been in my entire life and the lord is just feeding me blessings through the prophets mouth. I loved elder hollands talk obviously and Okay. Okay. I really am not a lady talk lover fan but the talk on Saturday morning of sister linda reeves was amazing! I just love alot of the reptition of the talks. Beautiful. I forgot my notebook because I was afraid it was going to get wet. But I felt the spirit alot. I also can't speak or spell english anymore. I don't really know whats wrong with my brain. 

    Also if anyone saw the general relief society broadcast... the I am a child of god video in 8 different languages? Yeah. One of those languages is thai. I was right in front of them while they were filming it..... it was the girls that looks like they are outside standing up just a line of young women. The last two on the right were my RC's. I was soooo freaking excited. Such a speacial opportunity for them. Also the ladies sitting down in a relief society room singing as well was thai. They sang "sawn chan took yang tii dong tham" ....if you can read that. Anyways. Very proud missionary in Thailand....

   General conference was amazing! The spirit just bore witness so strong that every thing is true. I'm so grateful for a living day prophet. It really makes me understand that god loves us today. I do think it amazing how the church will NOT get political but the passive agressivly state our beliefs. The church is so good with polotics. It makes me realize the patience aspect in our beliefs. Others want to chasten us but the prophet settly puts us back in our place by helping us remember the BASIC principles of the gospel. Sometimes I wonder why they don't reveal more deep doctrine but we can't even get the simple stuff down. How will we ever react to more doctrine if we can't live the simplicity. Anyways. LOVE THE GOSPEL LOVE THE PROPHET. This church is true.

 I love you all thank you for your prayers! 

Wow

At least I'm in THailand and ALIVE. Instead of dealing with world catastrophes like Garret.

    All is well. We had our english camp. It went over well. They want us back. Obviously. We are cool like that:) Just kidding. The students there new little to no english. It was way hard. Basically we talked in thai the entire time. I felt like I was back in udon up at that camp. So ghetto with really country side people who barely speak thai in itself. Haha. I learned a little of the new dialect. It was awesome. I'm trying to use it here in chiang mai. Sister Somboonit just laughs when I try to speak it. I sound like an idiot haha. But this camp also reminded me of Aseon food. This morning my stomach just explodes haha. no food poisoning thankfully. But sketchy food I don't think was good for anyone haha.

    We had a wayyy fun experience this last week. Before a baptism on sunday we had about 25 ish minutes to kill so we decided to go talk to everyone on the street in front of the church. Granted we live right where all the tourists are so we were talking to some people from all over the world. And then the little old man walks up who is thai. We talk to him about baptism and invite him in the church to watch it. He was like. Okay. So this little frail 85 year old man walks in the church with us. I can't understand him because he has no teeth but we invite him to eat with the members. He was so happy. Then he gets up and starts walking over to me and He is shorter than sister Somboonit so honestly. It's more awkward than a baby born with a full set of teeth. But he starts handing me his reciepts and I'm so confused. I'm like sister Somboonit come help me. I don't understand this guy. It turns out they were all his lottery numbers he was trying to give me. haha. I"m like sorry dude. we don't believe in numbers we believe in god. Anyways the members were so nice to him he stayed for the baptism loved it. Then after wards we are like. Hey old man. Want to get baptized? He was like. No, I'm buddist. Then he leaves, (slowly.) But he was so cute. Everyone was so jealous of our old little investigator man. Anyways. It was way cool. The hearts of the people in chiang mai are just so warm. I love it. 

    Translating is going fun. It helps with my thai a lot. I had the most tiring translating experience. We had zone training and it was like half in thai half in english so I had to translate for the senior companion for the thai parts and then I would turn the other way and translate for sister Somboonit on the english parts haha. It's definitely so hard to translate from english to thai. I'm so bad at it....

    Our district is struggling with unity right now. I've never had this problem but it's really dramatic. Kind of scary. Our zone leaders right now pretty much suck. They are so trunky and lazy and just jerks. So thats what we are dealing with. Pretty much my only problem. Sister Somboonit is my all time favorite person ever. I've never been so happy. We seriously are just laughing constantly.She just turned 25 last week. She is freaking old. She always just comes in and rubs her knees and tells me how old she is haha. Yesterday when we were leaving english I just said to everyone. Okay it's late. I'm taking my thai companion and going home so I just picked her up. Threw her over my shoulder and we were off haha. Everyone laughed it was funny. 

    Today we are going to Chiang Rai for a switch off. about 3 hour drive. But the coolest thing there is that people ride OSTRICHES............... If I see one. I'm riding it. period. No buts. Next week is the GIANT water Festivals. Chiang mai is the best for Song Kram. They bring out the elephants and just spray everyone. Monday we get to play all day and have to go in at night then next tuesday we "work" and go in at night to study. It's too hard here to work during song kram because EVERYONE takes off work to play for a whole week. And it's slightly dangerous for sisters because with water everyone puts baby powder on you too. And if you're not careful strangers will come pour baby powder down your shirt. Hah. Ahhh. THats going to be my life. Then this weekend is conference. I'm so excited it's like christmas!!!!! the white missionaries are going to the senior couples house for conference. Super stoked........

    The elder Senior couple is the funniest guy I've met. Elder and Sister Ure. Elder ure just kills me he is sooo funny. He always says like things old people say. He was talking about a river at the camp and told us it had to be full of HIV. or this kid was picking his nose and was saying. Oh man this kid is getting into buisness. It was so funny. And He was telling us about his colonoscopy how he was awake and got to watch it. He was also asking me about the worms that I had in udon and how I got rid of them. Oh my gosh. I can't stop laughing. He is sooo niceee. I love chiang mai. I'll die here and be totally happy...! 

I love youuu allll. Chiang Mai work is really doing great too. I am so happy. All the time. It's weird. I love it.!

Sister Phelps

(Emilee ran out of time and didn't get to explain any of her pictures from this week)

These first 3 are pictures from last week's waterfall hike