March 18, 2012

Hola familia! Como estas, todos?
Just practicing my Spanish. I hardly remember any. My brain is just all full of Thai. I feel like I can't even speak English right anymore, cuz my grammer is all off. Oh, well at least the other missionaries understand me! Hahaha! So, another week flew by! So crazy! I am getting so excited to get to talk to you all again in TWO MONTHS!!!! That is coming up so fast! E-mailing just never quite feels like enough, so it will be way awesome to actually get to talk to all of you! Speaking of things coming up way too fast...HAPPY BIRTHDAY JARED!!!!!! Man, I cannot believe that you are 18 already. You are officially an adult as of Wednesday. CRAZY! And Happy late Irish Day...I celebrated by wearing green. We were gonna go eat something Irish, but...we're in Thailand, so...yeah. Kelsie, you are so stinkin funny! I was laughing so hard I was crying when I read that! Too cute! Kayla, hang in there with soccer. Your talent is a gift from God, and you have the kind of personality where everyone wants to be your friend, so hang in there, it will get better! Jennah, keep working hard on those grades, I promise it is SO worth it!
Sister Tano is doing good. We never went to get her shots, but the bite barely scratched the skin, and she seems to be ok, so that is good. We are just working really hard out pounding the pavement every day. It is great. Even though it is really hard and frustrating to be out inviting everyday, I love it because that is when I feel most like a missionary. When I am out walking around Thailand, sweating, with a Book of Mormon in my hands being rejected by one person after another after another. Those are the times I really feel like I am fulfilling my purpose. President Smith calls it "the anvil of our faith", and he always says that if we aren't being rejected we are doing something wrong. I am really starting to see how I can show my love for these people by being bold. We are here to let people know that they can be saved in the kingdom of God by repenting and being baptized. We have to let them know they have a choice, and to help make that choice clear for them, so if I can walk away from someone feeling like I have done that, it makes me feel good! Anyway, we aren't into rainy season, yet. It is still just hot. We will get into rainy season about July and it should last through about October. We only have one branch here, so we only have to go to church for three hours. Thailand is still so young in the church that they only have like 6 or 7 wards in one stake, all in Bangkok. The rest are all branches and districts. It is definately WAY different from the church in America. Our branch is one of the highest in church attendance and we only get about 80-85 people coming every week. The sad thing is that there are over 600 people on the records in our branch and only 85 of them are active. So us and the Elders are really working on visiting and re-activating less actives, and making sure our investigators are truly converted, so they don't get baptized and fall away. We ride our bikes everywhere unless we are inviting, then we park them and walk. My shoes are holding up SO well! I am way impressed with them! And they are so perfect when it rains too! If I could have anything from home....um, starbursts, skittles, cheese-its, pictures of the family...oooh, hair gel...my hair is SO frizzy here, it's gross. : ) Speaking of things from home, did you get a chance to send those letters from the kids?
Our week was crazy and way fun! On THursday we had a zone training in Khon Kaen, which was way fun! It is always awesome to get to be around other missionaries. It is always just one big party. Especially for the missionaries in Khorat since there are only four of us and all other areas have at least 6. So the pictures I am sending are of the sisters in my zone. They are SO awesome! So there is this one member here, her name is Sister Lek. She is super cute and is trying really hard to learn English, so she says some really funny things. We found out a couple weeks ago that one of the Phillipino sisters in our branch is pregnant, so Sister Lek went around telling every one in English, "Sister Lerma is pigment", but no matter how many times we corrected her, she just couldn't say it right! Then yesterday, we were sitting in ward correlation meeting, and she was talking to Elder Doria, shaking her fist at him and asking, "Do you want to eat a suckle?" Hahaha! She was mixing up knuckle sandwich and sucker punch, and came up with suckle! So funny! I just wanted to tell her, my mom is really good at making up her own language, too! HAhaha! So great!

K, well I had better end this novel now. I love you all tons and can't wait to hear from you again! Have a wonderful, fantastic week!

ซิสเตอร์ วอลเลซ
Sister Wallace
Jess