Whatttts Up

Definitely the longest week of my life! Haha. Let me explain...

Last monday: Zoo. saw a zebra. saw a giraffe. Held a falcon. Cool.

Last Tuesday: Happy mother's day (Thai style) Started off with an exciting activity with the branch. Then Sister Sumitra was able to talk to her mother when her mother cried. Told her she promises that she is going to start going to church when she gets off her mission (another year man) But she has been so stoked off of life. Being the only member in her family with no support has been so hard for her. But just getting that extra sweet push from her mother really motivated her and it was just a sweet miracle....

I don't know why i'm getting impatient emailing haha. 

Okay wednesday: Contacted all day. Got legit investies to go to church. Thursday: Same thing.

Thursday night.... food poisoning. Pretty bad this time. Worst I've ever had. In the bathroom like 30 times that night. The next morning we were supposed to do a switch off with the sisters in Surin... But i canclled. Haha i thought I was going to die. So after about 6 hours I finally let my comp take me to the hospital. There they told me my stomach was in a little bit of shock from throwing everything up and my fever was spiking so they made me stay at the hospital. Haha. I was a mess. My poor district leader calls me and I just am crying so hard haha. Poor elder astle...  He probably felt so akward. Sister Senior calls me tries to calm me down. My sweet little comp is just holding my hand. So much love.... Finally they take me to an area to get a shot for my stomach. He tried at first to give the shot in my bum. And sister Sumitra and I just start laughing and then I tell him no way and he gives it to me in the arm. It was too exciting. Anyways. Went through some more tests. gave me an IV. I felt so sick haha. THen they finally got me to the room where I slept and slept and doctors came and gave me medicine and I slept. THen all my elders and the members came to visit me that night. It was sweet. THen I slept and slept then the next morning I woke up. Then slept some more. Felt so much better. They release me at like 4pm. I'm just so grateful for my companion. SHe made things so much better and laughable... Haha

Anyways. After that traumatic experience we worked and had 12 people for sure going to church...Got to churhc. ONE showed up. hhaah. It was depressing. But that means this next week we have to work harder! Going to surin and sisagate to do switch off's :) Super stoked! Love my cute khon thai comp. My health is way better. Even though this area has the best food I definitely need to watch out for sicknessess. 

I love my mission:) Loveeee it!!!! This area is a bit hard. But hey. no worries... THe Lords timing is whats important. We will get it I'm sure... Got to figure out how to work with the members in this area. THey don't really like the missionaries at all. So a little struggle with that. But at the same time we could be doing a lot more:)

Last night we had a bonfire with our district. Every one is biting dust with investigators at church. So rough. But we'll find those goldies. :) But yes. Last night was awesome. Two of the elders made us spaggethtti. I suck at spelling haha. But it was sooo sweet. I love my district. The Lord really blessed me with a great distrcit!!!! Love them.!

Sister Phelps

Hospital fun.

Zoo Fun...me and my comp

Falcon

My delicious feet tan lines :) Missionary life.

Yup.

TRANSFERS!. Holy cow. New comp. New area. New calling. Guess where I am? Fine I won't leave you hanging..... I'm in UBON Yup... EAST(Asean) baby. Where all the good food is. No i'm not back in Udon in my greenie area. But UBON. It reminds me exactly like Udon.... Seriously..... It's a way bigger area than Chiang Rai that is for sure. But for sure Asean like... The people here aren't as beautiful as up in the North but it's still a fun one thats for sure....

COMPANION MAN! Sister... Summitra! ANother Thai companion!!! holy crap. I'm just too happy with that. haha She has been out for about 6 ish months now. Still pretty young in the mission and she hates talking on the phone haha. I thought that was just a white person thing. So pretty much i'm the one talking on the phone... in my second language hahah.... She is SO freaking adorable though....She is going to make me FAT. holy crap. She looks exactly like me when i was in 6th grade. Skin and Bones and short. But she eats like a fat person. For example. For breakfast we are eating cake. right now. Shoot me. Fat Fat Fat. I don't know what happened to 6 months to sexy... it's more like 6 days to sexy.... Crud. 

But yes. Very lucky to have a thai companion again. THey are rare. In Ubon there has been some problems with white sisters so the've only had Thai sisters here for a bit now and now I just moved in... And I'm pretty much pure white. So that's exciting. NEW CALLING.... Yup.. Sister Training leader now... It's pretty fun. Just have to watch over two other companionships in the zone and my companion. Pretty easy. One of the sisters is training so thats fun to follow up with a brand new greenie haha.

OH I'M A GRANDMA!!!! SISTER HER IS TRAINING.... I'm such a proud mother. And sister Ellis my second daughter is training too... I'm such a proud mother....

Ubon is an exciting area... Sisters are in here and taken out of here all the time. The branch reminds me of Pakkret a bit actually. A little different to work with. Yesterday we had one drunk investigator at church. We gave him to the Elders for obvious reasons... But you know. It's definitely not a chiang rai haha. But I'm really in love with this area. Contacting is so easy. We can go 6 hours a day and not even realize it. So many great places to contact. But a little tougher than most. BUT hey. it's still a dream to be in thailand....

OH DON"T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON MY DISTRICT... I literally love the crap out of them! Such a change from my last couple areas! Saeriously. Elder ASTLE is my district leader. MTC first DL also. haha it's amazing. Laugh with that kid all the time. we have 10 people in our district. 3 companion ships of elders in our area. Us. Then we have 2 elders in Yassoton which is about an hour away. It's fun. Seriously so much fun. Really though. This branch in UBON is about to split so thats why we have 4 sets of missionaries. 

UBON is going to see some miracles! We are excited... Yesterday with all for of us we had about 10 investigators at church...crazy because in CHiang rai we would get that much just our companionship haha. Just a totally different area. We just got here friday... which we took a train here. Holy trash. Most beautiful drive in the world.... Just green.... We get to make that drive quite often for Mission Leadership Training. Exciting....

Love my comp. love my district. Love my area. And I'm a mormon hahaha. Just kidding. But seriously. Crazy stuff happening here. Pray for this area....

MY COMP!

I'm a grandma! plus the family tree. my granddaughter is a babe except i forgot her name

Train ride view from bangkok to ubon... 12 hour drive. sleeeper trains. <3 Okay... way awkward. 2 elders and two sister shared this like space sort of thing. Just an open door between our two spaces and in the morning i heard an elder get up and make some noise and i turn the covers of my head and he was staring at us hahaha. And I just say to him hello good morning and he just shakes his head out of a trance and he felt so awkward too haha. oh my freak sooo awkward. and at night apparently when the lights were off the other elder was sitting up in his bed staring for like an hour of into space and sister Summitra felt so awkward too hahaha. So freaking awkward

Ubon and me. 

Transfers

Well it's pretty dumb.... Chiang Rai is a dream.... and it's transfers... I'm not ready to leave but with me having only 12 weeks left I can see president moving me to one more area... Or I'll just die here. All is well. 

Why is Chiang Rai a dream? Remember our miracle Jerlene? Motorcycle man? Baptized his daughter? Well his other daughter was baptized... in Chiang mai.... The completes the family.... MIRACLE.... he is definitely the warmest to my heart. I can't wait for you guys to meet him. Such a humble guy. And a great dad.... 

We also had a baptism yesterday...an adorable 17 year old girl... I'll hug her twice. We have 2 for sure's getting baptized next week. Like passed interview as well. I'm a little bummed if we will miss it. But wherever the Lord calls.

One girl I met at central... she is adorable. She has really satanic dreams though. It's pretty scary. So we just tried to give her some good tools to help her in her life. She is way adorable. Loves reading and wants all the material to study from in the library. We had this impression to share Joseph Smith's "real" experience while he was in the grove with the whole satanic feelings that came upon him before he actually had God and Jesus christ appear to him. She was really touched by that. and ultimately knew the church was true as soon as we read it. She is a stud. We told her we were going to teach the plan of salvation next time and while we were with her she was like. No i have to know now. And we taught it to her once simply like you are supposed to. And then she still had questions so we taught the REAL plan of salvation with the first estate and the war in heaven. She was BLOWN away hahaha. It was soooo cute. her face the whole time killed me. It was sooo funny. Made my day yesterday..

But Chiang Rai is legit. Transfers are this week. I"m nervous to be the oldest in the mission. I don't want a leadership position haha. Too much responsibility Anyways... thats all i have! love you!!!! :) Pray that i'm not stressed outta my mind. Also.. i had a weird sickness last week... Couldn't keep anything down.... Pretty much in most of the time... probably a bug. But hey.. i'm better. Thats also a miracle:) LOVEEEE

Sister Phelps

Meeting in chiang mai with the sisters in the north zone!!!!! yes..... me and sister holmes are completely companions... stripes and polka dots? Thats us for you

Picture of Jerlene's daughter baptism. 

I'm fat

Baptism yesterday

I made myself some scripture cases. be jealous.

Goals

WOO hooo. We made our goal for july:) 4 baptisms! We had our last two yesterday. It was a sweet experience. Our legendary motorcyle man baptized his own daughter yesterday. What a sweet experience. My goal from the begging was to baptize a family and with help from sister holmes and the Lord we did. He is way excited to go to the temple to baptize his wife and be sealed to her. His daughter that lives in Chiang Mai went to church yesterday. She is getting ready to be baptized next Sunday.  What a special special day. Ahhhhh just sooo much love.

We had our 17 year old investigator that has been going for 4 weeks got baptized too. She was so cute as well. The person who baptized her was just baptized himself a couple months prior. So 2 newly ordained priesthood holders were able to baptize and we got to watch! Woo hoo!

We are planning for two baptisms on saturday. and one on sunday.... Cross you fingers. Do a little dance and pray. I'll just eat ice cream and pray because i'm fat. But Yes... just more miracles... Yay for miracles!

On saturday we had switch off's with the sister training leaders and of course when they come and visit every appointment falls through. Classic. But Sister Tilley perfectly just moved to chiang mai to be an STL a week prior and she of course chose to be with me because she missed me. We were pretty sure that was against the white handbook but holy cow did we have fun together. FREE preztel day at auntie annes too. And it was the ALMOND kind. And it was fresh. It wasn't the crappy salted ones. No.. best preztel of my life..... I love free things.... Like free salvation. You think it would sound pretty good right???? But in the end we got a little stressed out because we were talking about going home and it sounded too stressful to have to make your own decisions and worry about yourself.... But I loved working with sister tilley. Just brought happiness to my day. She has the biggest most hilarious personality ever... She always talks about you mom and dad and how you gave her a pillow in the air port.... Such a champ....

I actually wrote some things in my planner to say today because I just forget what happens most weeks. This week was the first AND LAST time we taught a lesson in a park... because you know.. in thailand they do free arobic classes in the park... Most distracting thing of my life if I do say so myself...They were playing that aqua song. "Dr. jones jones calling dr jones dr jones dr. jones get up now (wake up now)" Yeah that one. As we are teaching the 10 commandments I start having a bounce in my foot and rythm in my body. Anyways.... Distracting... won't happen again. Oops. ka. 

Also.. my most favorite thing is first prayers... Especially most thai people that are buddist have never prayed before.... This is what happened with one of our people getting baptized on sunday. "Hello heavenly Father, This is Goosone, your son, i've tried to be a good son, but i mess up and i'm sorry." It's literally the most enjoyable experience of any missionaries life.... It brought me back to udon when my first convert prayed for the first time and it was just an awesome experience! I love it.

I'm pretty sure I was funnier and cooler 15 months ago. Now I have dreams that I'm singing to dora the explorer's "map" song. "I am fat, I am fat, I am fat, I am fat " You get the picture. but it's fine. I love food.... And I'm always happy when I'm eating.

Yesterday the branch did a SICK Iron rod activity (my idea hah) And we have 4 stories in our church so we had a fog smoke machine going up the stairs. Talk about insane. The smog was so thick you couldn't see in front of you. I was supposed to be an angel helping people the whole way... but then in the end. I ate the cake. It was too delicious..

Alright. That's all i remember. I love you all! Chiang Rai is boss. I'll spend my whole mission here. I love sister Holmes. Pretty much my best friend. That is all i could ask for.

-Sister Phelps

pics of the apartment...... pretty high-so... we love it..

Pictures of the miracle baptisms... and the elders had one too :)

I literally don't remember what happened to time

Hey everyone! Sorry this will be short. I don't know what happened to time today. But I love you all. This week was super exciting! We had an 11 year old get baptized. And then the miracle set in stone. After he got baptized his mother called us and told us she moved back to chiang Rai from Bangkok and wants to be baptized here and said it was god's plan for her. Talk about miracle. She has a date set in stone for this Sunday. Also our two 16 year olds that have been going to church for 4 weeks are getting baptized on Sunday. Also our legit motorcycle man brought his daughter to church yesterday and he blessed the sacrament and is baptizing her next week too. Talk about another miracle. Just because we threw our bodies in front of his motorcycle his life is changed. It makes me sad to think if we hadn't been worthy to head that prompting. So obedience bring success. EXACT obedience brings miracles. And we are seeing those flow out in CHiang Rai. Thank you for your prayers... They are answered. I love this work. I love being busy. Our Elders are killing it too. Last transfers was our refiners fire and now we came out on top thanks to the Lord. 

The rainy season keeps us on our toes at all times.... Mostly because we can't see in the rain so we just walk everywhere:) It's pretty legit being in a tropical storm constantly. 2 more weeks in the transfer and then I'm the oldest set of sisters left! Talk about weird. 

Happy Birthday Grandma Petersen! Love you soooo sooo much! 

Sister Phelps

last week we went for a swan ride... it was exciting

this one with our feet is very naughty with our thai culture... the members got a laugh out of it

 lunch with members in a tiki hut

lunch..... Spicy firid squid nuts? no thanks....

Pictures of the Baptism last monday! :)

Sister Kwan my favortie sister in the branch made us little crochet us's aren't they freaking legit!  

Inviting no one in the middle of no where.

Dairy queen take home for sister Holmes' half way mark.

These little bananas kill me soo cute.

Family and Friends

Hey what's up,

Super exciting news. Our two new RC's got the priesthood yesterday. This little branch is just growing! besides yesterday. It poured and it showed how many people had a testimony. just 48 our of 70... and 8 of those were our investigators. Seriously a miracle that we had investigators want to come to church yesterday in the pouring rain. That's so not thai of them... But it was legit. We gave the elders 2 of our investigators and they are getting baptized next week and we have 4 of those getting baptized in the next two weeks! Pretty legit. I don't know why this transfer is so much different than last... helps a lot! 

Well, We are having a baptism tonight! :) We are way excited! Our little 11 year old baptism super exciting. It was the funniest experience teaching him haha. We are like teaching him the word of wisdom and he finally got it down. Couldn't understand tithing for the life of him haha. we even brought candy to use. But yesterday at church we are like. GOW GOW! What are you going to do tomorrow? He was like. "OBEY THE LORD" haha and he was so excited. We are like, close. What else. He was like, "Not drink coffee." haha we were dying. Almost Gow gow.... One more guess. haha He never got it. We are like baptized duh. and he was like. OH! YES! I'm so excited and he starts dancing around haha. Such a cute kid...

Last week I struggled with the culture. I crossed my legs in front of an old lady and she snapped at me... i totally forgot it's super disrespectful. and then I waied someone to high... Yeah. i got chewed out again haha. Oops.

So the whole thing with President we went to dinner with him because he lost a bet with me. It was legit. In an interview he told me that no sister's wear dresses and I told him yes they do. So he made a bet that if at zone conference there were 3 sisters wearing dresses he would owe me dinner. I was like. DEAL.... so I obviously won because sisters love dresses. We get a call on tuesday night saying to plan 3 hours with President senior in your area. We were stressed we had nothing to do. haha so we planned to just take him to a market and go contacting. Thankfully the next day he showed up and had meeting. phew. but after he took the missionaries to dinner and it was soooo fun. He just ordered everything off the menu and it was hilarious. Our mission president is seriously the coolest. Can't stop laughing around that dude.....

Alright. I don't have much else to report on,. Love my area.... Love my mission love my life. จบ

Love everyone and thank you for your support.

Sister Phelps

We went to Jerlene's house (our RC) and his house was legit.... his house is concrete floors a couch. tin roof. a tv. It's literally the most adorable unique thing ever. 

like an hour song tow ride to our RC's house which was beautiful because it's flooded and there is mountains i was scared to stick my head outside...

Dinner with President Senior. That was stressful and exciting. 

Baptism!

ANOTHER ONE:) Jerlene was baptized. You know. The 55 year old man we met 8 days ago. Yes. He was a miracle. Just riding his motorcycle by the church and we had the guts to go stand in front of the church and stop his moving motorcycle...and because of it his life is totally changed. It was a really a moving experience teaching him. We taught him the word of wisdom and he had been drinking this weird alcoholic drink with his friends all the time but after we taught him he stopped completely. He said he felt sick thinking about it after that and since he stopped he said his body had more strength and he could remember things better. He was the cutest old man ever. Just a miracle.His wife died 3 years prior and It was soooo cool teaching him he can live with her again... After he was baptized he had the opportunity to bear his testimony. He talked about how now he really has found himself and felt like a child of God. These are the moments to keep us going.

That last transfer was so hard. The goal this month is for everyone to have 4 baptisms. Right now we have 2 people lined up for next week... It feels like such a blessing to be an instrument in the lords hands. Yesterday we went to a funeral for our brand RC Nung's aunt. Brother Nung had no idea how to go to a buddist funeral and be christian. He was stressed because you have to Wai and stuff like that and so we had some members and us go help be an example for him. Apparently there is an exception to go do buddist stuff as long as you have a prayer in your heart. So that was definitely culturally interesting. Nung is seriously the cutest RC ever haha.After the funeral he took us to his "garden" in his backyard. It's literally a jungle. It's beautiful and him sister Holmes and I were trying to catch as many chickens as we could haha. All the member just love him and his mom. We are trying to work with his mom. She has been to church as many times as nung and loves it. haha she just won't accept a baptismal date haha. She is crazy but all the members love them... I love them too. I can't wait for mom and dad to come and see it here. 

Yesterday they took a "priesthood picture" at Jerlenes baptism and it was so moving to watch this little branch grow with strong priesthood holders. It felt way good to be apart of it too.. With little nung and jerlene in there and the eldeers just baptized an old man. My thoughts are weird to think "why now is the mission baptizing all the melk potential priesthood holders." Just a crazy awesome experience.....

I LOVE chiang Rai. I could die here and be totally fine... We are currently teaching an 11 year old getting baptized on sunday. He is really cool and cute. definitely a first of teaching a child. But it's so rewarding....

AHHH i love my mission. Wouldn't trade it for the WORLD.... Thailand is literally about to get a temple. We are getting texts about it all the time. Something is up and I'm so excited to be apart of the coolest time! Whatts good.

I love you all. I'm definitely excited to see you. 

I'm also learning a new dialect in the north.... It's pretty fun...

Sister Phelps

love these thais

fish sticks anyone?

bugs in thailand

baptism from last week

the teeniest puppy ever

just live in a wilderness

just a legit bike ride scenery 

we have goals to take a picture a day.... just randomness

riding a bike int he rain

found reeses in thailand whats good.... 

baptism from this week

caught chickens

walking through Nung's "garden"