April 14, 2014

                                                                     Dear Family,

Happy Songkran! Happy Thai New Year! Happy Water fight!!! The water festival started yesterday and it goes until Tuesday. So today's P-Day activity is a giant water fight with the entire country. I'm so excited!! This time last year was my first P-Day in country and I had no idea what as going on and we didn't really get to play. This year is going to be great! Everything is closed for the Holiday. It feels so deserted, and the people that are out have buckets and water guns and splash everyone that walks by with freezing cold water. It feels great. Along with the water, people throw this powder all over your face. Sister Carter got it all over the side of her face and in her ear as we walked here from our apartment. Fun stuff!

Lao Suu sells mu bing outside the church

Conference was wonderful and glorious!! And we had two investigators come watch too! That was the happiest thing! Sorry this is old news for you, but we just watched it this weekend and I am so happy and energized by the things that I've learned. I loved Elder Eyring's talk. I really want to learn more about our family history. I'm excited to do that. My favorite talk was from Elder Bednar "Bear up their burdens with ease" It was the load... Love this scripture in Matt 11:28-30. The atonement is my theme for the month. Accept the invitation that our Savior so lovingly extends to each of us.  Rely on him! Pull together with him! His yoke is easy and his burden is light. We can receive capacity and strenght beyond our own. Carry on! Are you as comforted and hopeful as I am after hearing all this? Yes! Only through the Atonement can we do more and become more. Why do we so easily forget these things? I don't know but I'm trying to remember Him more. There was a wonderful theme of simplicity this conference. I felt an urgency to do good and to be better. Be Strong! Another theme of my life recently. I have renewed faith and hope. We can't do it alone, not supposed to do it alone.I loved the many talks about Joseph smith. I love the prophet so much and I'm grateful for his diligence and his example of seeking knowledge. I have learned for myself that these things are true and I have found so much joy helping others do the same. I want to remember what I've learned and be better. 

Last night we had Family Home evening at the Seniors. It was soooo much fun and it made me miss you all so much. It felt exactly like our FHEs complete with President Senior asking Elder Lucas to ask someone else to say the prayer, followed by a family counsel. Then Sister Senior encouraging President Senior to just start the lesson and it was just so good to be in their home and to be reminded of you all. We had a really nice lesson about the Lord's Prayer and shared our favorites from Conference. Afterwards we played foosball at their kitchen table. There was a ping pong ball and we just had to blow it across the table. It was hillarious and so fun. I laughed so hard I cried. I'll tell you more of this wonderful water fight next week! I love being a missionary! The church is so true! Have a great week!

Love, 

Sister Sahagun

April 7, 2014

Dear Family,

Loved your emails, thanks for all the sweet updates! So it's Steve Burton like used to teach ag science at CV? Hu. That's cool. You've definitely been in my prayers this week! Always, but especially this week. I can't believe Courtney is going to have her baby so soon! Don't forget to send me pictures! Hey you may not have noticed this, but Wisit Khanakham was called to serve as the first Thai area 70! He was one of President Senior's counselors. He's awesome! We served with him quite a bit up in Udon.

Dad your email was perfect! I still haven't watched conference yet. This weekend! I'm so excited to hear the talks!! I loved how you talked about living in the moment. Lizzy emailed me this week about this too. I just want to watch conference. It sounds like a much needed theme in my life right now. Live in the moment. We have all of eternity to think about what we did in this life. Yes, and time is so short so I really need to make the most of it and enjoy the here and now and worry about tomorrow later. I started a new planner today. Where did the last 6 weeks go? Anyway, the important thing is that today we are going to teach brother Egg and talk to Sister Lek about helping us find some LAs on Thursday.

I eat squid!

I loved hearing what you both wrote while you were on your missions. I love reading through my notes in the MTC and my journal from when I first arrived in country. I've learned so much! 

I also eat Spaghetti!

I've been called Elder so much this week. I don't know why so many people are confused about this. Apparently missionary=Elder. This one lady was talking about how when she learned, she learned with boy Elders not girl Elders. Sometimes I just laugh and don't correct them because they call us Elder anyway. 

I went on a switchoff in Bangbuatong. I forgot how terrifying it is to ride a bike in Bangkok and how scandalous it is riding a bike in a skirt. We talked to tons of people. (Another way of saying that things fell through so we went contacting.) 

We are teaching this adorable old man named Sugid that is way Buddhist and wants to be baptized. His first prayer, "Heavenly Father, I'm a good person. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen." He is such a good person. We taught him the commandments,said we don't worship idols and told him to take off his Buddhist necklace phraa thing I don't know what to call it in English, and the next day he showed up at church with no Buddhist necklace and hadn't had any coffee that morning either. He's so excited to be baptized. I've never met an old person so open to change as he is. 

The Baptismal font in Bangbuatong.

Then we're teaching this kid Joe. He's 19, we just met him outside the office as we were heading towards the church and he agreed to meet with us two hours later after he got off work. We taught him and committed him to quit smoking. He said he would try. He's still struggling a bit but he's super cool. He wanted to meet with us everyday so that he can prepare to be baptized. When we taught the Law of Chastity and said we can't have homosexual relationships. He said, "Don't worry. I promise to Jesus that I won't do that!" I'm so glad. He's so cool and has tons of good questions about the gospel. The other day he asked us a non gospel related question,"How much does it cost to fly from Thailand to America?" Uh...we don't know. "How did you get here?" We flew...kind of embarrassing. It's expensive. That's all I know.

Training Sisters Meeting

Wednesday was mission leadership council. I always love that meeting. We talked a lot about doing the simple things: following up, praying for and expecting miracles, and asking for referrals. Faith leads to small miracles that lead to marvelous works. It's really simple. The simplicity of the gospel brings so much peace and true happiness. We talked about the gift of the Holy Ghost and the light of Christ. I love this scripture in D&C 50:24-25..chase darkness from among you...Where there is light there can be no darkness!! 

I love this time of year so much! Conference is like Christmas. I miss being with you all and eating Costco muffins, but I'll think of you and eat a banana cake from 7 and will be almost just as good. 

Love you most,

Sister Sahagun

Dear Family,

We spent quite a bit of time this week at our third home, Bangkok Hospital. (first: the church, second: Siam condo, third: the hospital.) We're all healthy now! The bug has been identified and named as Plesiomonas Shigelloides. Sounds about as bad as it was. Poor Sister Carter got it bad. Yay for antibiotics!! We got really good at taking the bus there, and boarding and exiting the bus safely. Thai buses are crazy. (All cars in Thailand are) I guess mom had a crazy driving escapade this week. It was probably a mild Thai style driving. Anyway, when boarding and exiting the bus you must be quick and careful because the bus actually never stops. It kind of just slows down to a roll and the minute you have one foot on it speeds up and takes off at freeway speeds.

The President of BYU Hawaii came and visited us and gave a lil seminar for just the missionaries. He talked about learning, leading, and building. It was really motivating and I liked it.

On Wednesday we met two Jehovah's Witnesses and two saints, Peter and Paul. What a day. The Jehovah's Witnesses were these two sweet Asian ladies. The one lady was probably four feet tall. She stopped and looked up at me and asked if what I was carrying was the scriptures. Yes! She got so excited and so I showed her that it was the Book of Mormon. She smiled, and quickly walked away. Then the saints. We were walking through the university and these two men from Ireland invited us over. We sat down and were informed that they were having a literary discussion of a famous Irish author something James I don't know I guess he's like their Shakespeare, anyway somehow we got the conversation going about our church and they agreed to walk with us back to the church. (2 minute walk from where we were) We walked in and I immediately could tell that Paul was so uncomfortable. He liked the paintings as we walked him through the church. He asked me if I'd ever read the Book of Mormon. I could tell that he had a lot of questions, and then they all came out. And all of his opinions and things he's confused about and why the world is such a terrible place and a couple other things. We just listened. I'm so glad we listened. I hope that we gave him a better impression of our church. I didn't really do this story justice. Sorry. I'll tell you more some other time.

Our elevator makes this lovely lil chime when it arrives. Just four notes that sound like the start to Lead Kindly Light. It's nice.

We were so productive this week! Despite all our hospital visits. Oh and I went to the dentist. That was funny. They put this purple washcloth thing over my face that covered my eyes, nose, and chin but had a hole where my mouth is. It was really weird but kind of nice to not have that bright light in my eyes. 

I'm so happy here. It's great to be a missionary. I'm so grateful for prayer. We can and should ask for help. I need to ask more questions in my prayers. I know the Lord hears and answers us. Have a wonderful week!

Love, 

Sister Sahagun

The scary looking building is my apartment building

 Dear Family,

This week President and Sister Senior left for 5 days to do zone conferences and district conferences in the North and as soon as they left everyone got sick. We were going to be in a trio with this one sick sister and then the next day we were struck with some other terrible plague of fever chills and stomach problems. So then they sent that other sister somewhere else and we were out for 3 days. Not fun. Lots of phone calls were made. Still not sure what it was. Maybe a bacterial infection? Parasites? Something nasty. Not quite back to "normal", but I don't really remember what "normal" feels like anymore. 

What is this winter that keeps dragging on that everyone is talking about? I'll keep Enoch in my prayers for some rain. Poor Nick out there in the cold and snow. I've been living in this Summer wonderland for a year and I am definitely not taking it for granted. It's kind of confusing though it just feels like a forever summer but they are just now putting up signs for summer sales and summer fun whatever and I have to keep asking myself what month it is.

I'm stressed. The end is coming and I don't want to speak of it but I got my sprint to the finish letter and my release date info and all these hard questions about details I don't know and I'm supposed to sign up for school and a place to live and I just want to stay here forever!!!

Sorry that was dramatic. I'm trying to find a balance. It's all going to work out. I know that this preparation is kind of necessary, but I feel kind of out of the loop not knowing the answers and it's easier to just not think about it. That's all. 

We had a baptism yesterday! Coms was baptized along with 5 other investigators. Coms mom is a less active member that has this yummy restaurant pretty close by the church. Coms is 13 and has been praying with her mom her whole life, she just never got baptized. So we taught her all the lessons and we've been bringing her to church with us and now she's baptized and we're going to keep teaching her and prepare her to be a missionary! She's adorable. In her testimony she said that she knows that God is real and promised to keep the commandments forever. Every person after her said the same thing pretty much. It was awesome. Keep the commandments! Good theme.

Mom you asked about scripture study. I just do a million things at once. Right now I'm studying in the Doctrine and Covenants and the Book of Mormom in English and in Thai in another place. I just have a question every day that I right down and try to find answers. I color code stuff. Right now I've been highlighting every time I see God or Jesus Christ or any of their names in yellow. It's everywhere. I love it. The scriptures truly testify of Christ. 

I love reading in Thai! I underline all the words I don't know and look them up and it's all making sense. Personal Study is always my favorite. 

I am so grateful for the peace this gospel brings. I hope you all have a wonderful week! Don't forget to pray! 

Love,

Sister Sahagun

Dearest Family,

This week was long and fast and jam packed and challenging and uplifting and good and yes that is all.

We had zone conference and zone training! I love meetings. Dad you'd be so proud, I learned a lil about megapixels of cameras and about how many megapixels are in the human eye and even though we can see way better than the best camera, we still can't quite see all that our Heavenly Father sees. Faith is required. With God all things are possible. There's no need for doubt! Expect miracles! Repent for ever doubting! President Senior's brother in law spoke to us for a little, and shared some cool experiences from his mission in Taiwan. He talked about how each group of missionaries had a Chinese character that distinguished what group they were in the mission. Did that make sense? Did you have one Dad?

They were all attributes from Doctrine and Covenants Section 4.

 1 Now behold, a marvelous work is about to come forth among the children of men.

 2 Therefore, O ye that embark in the  service of God, see that ye serve him with all your heart, might, mind and strength, that ye may stand  blameless before God at the last day.

 3 Therefore, if ye have desires to serve God ye are  called to the work;

 4 For behold the field is white already to harvest; and lo, he that thrusteth in his sickle with his might, the same layeth up in store that he perisheth not, but bringeth salvation to his soul;

 5 And faith, hope, charity and love, with an eye single to the glory of God, qualify him for the work.

 6 Remember faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience,brotherly kindness, godliness, charity,humility, diligence.

 7 Ask, and ye shall receive; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. Amen. I thought that was cool. 

The morning of zone conference I woke up and my lip was HUGE! We all laughed so hard and I soon realized I had been bit by a mosquito. Luckily it mostly went down by the time we got the the church at 8.

Mom, I am learning Afrikaans. Yes. The international sisters that we live with: Sister Barber's new companion is Sister du Plessis and her dad is from South Africa. Love her. I can say "My hand is in warm water." Probably everyone can actually it's so similar to English. It's still a real language though Dad. I'll keep practicing and tell you something cool next week.   

Zone training was really funny. The zone leaders and I did a play. I think it really helped everyone understand how to better help our investigators progress and to help them understand what it is they are progressing towards. I was the investigator in the play, and it was really good to take a minute to think from their perspective. Something I want to do better is with following up. The Elders had 14 people at church yesterday! That's amazing. So I asked them how they did it. They said that they call everyone every single day and say, "Do you remember our promise?" Promise? What? Yes, when they first contact them, invite them to church and then make them pinkie promise that they'll come. So everyday they remind their potential investigators of this pinkie promise, ask them where they are, if they've eaten yet, and by Friday the person pretty much has the routine figured out and they come to church on Sunday. That's how it's done.

There's this cool pond at our apartment building with big pretty fish in it. I think we'll have to steal that great fish name and call one Fistachio.

The church sign at night and the beautiful moon

Contacting is so fun. I met this man who was from China and already Christian! He looked at me and said "You love Jesus." This week I overcame my fear of talking to foreigners. I started saying Hello! to everyone instead of สวัสดีค่ะ and it's way better because all the Thai people immediately turn to me with this concerned how can I help you lost foreigner look and are ready to listen to my invitation. I can tell pretty quickly if they're interested or not the minute I start speaking Thai and show them my picture of baptism. Then with foreigners, they either quickly say hi, completely ignore me or say something mean. Most people were really nice to me this week actually. I met someone from Croatia, Singapore, Myanmar, and Indonesia. They all spoke English. There's a lot of tourists too. I'm starting to be able to tell the difference between Japanese and Korean and Thai and all the other Asians. I wish I spoke every Asian language. That would be so helpful. I asked President Senior to teach me some Japanese, but he said that would make him dispensable. I'll ask again.

We were whistled away from our favorite contacting spot in front of Tesco Lotus (grocery store). I loved that spot. 

Sister Carter and I have a goal to talk to more people on the MRT. I don't know why it's so much harder to talk to people there. No one can walk away from us, it's really quiet so everyone can hear, and there's millions of people. Isn't that exactly what we want? Yes. Well, I'm working on just talking to the first person I see the minute I get on the MRT. It's harder if I wait to break the silence. Also, sometimes (a lot of times) they aren't interested and I just want to keep talking to them to make it less awkward and also it's scary to turn to the next person that already knows what I'm going to ask them about. BUT, the PMG is the best thing ever and I know that I can help people most by teaching them the gospel and so I'm just going to keep talking to everyone and not be hesitant or whatever that weird feeling is when we're on the MRT and it's going to be great. 

I ate so many tacos this week. And I had a slice of apple pie. Way happy about that.

I love rice!

I think I have a cavity. Must go to the dentist. Not too excited about that.

I got my death papers.(This is a missionary term for when missionaries leave their mission and go home) 

Terrified about that.

My apartment building

I love Thailand so much. I love teaching these people about Christ and his Atonement. I love the Book of Mormon so much! I know that Heavenly Father loves us so much and wants us to have so much more than just this life. It's crazy to think about how much I've learned and how I've changed. Change and the Atonement are my favorite things about the gospel. 

I hope you all have a wonderful week!

Love,

Sister Sahagun

My apartment building at night

Dear Family,

I am loving this missionary life. I try not to be so crazy obsessed sounding when I write you these emails, but really the truth is I just love it all. I love planning. ME: "Tomorrow is be productive and be flexible day." Sister Carter: "Like every day..." Pretty much. I love that nothing goes the way we plan and I love that a million more things come up and we meet more people to teach and fit into our schedule. I thrive on this randomness and filling my day with good productive things. It's a happy life being a missionary.

Sorry this is literally the only good picture I took this week. we pass this man every day and every day I think "It's Sirius Black." I hope you can zoom in and get a good look at him. He's actually a former investigator from a while ago. I think I'll ask him for a real picture with him this week. :)

So every day on our way to the church we walk across the the bridge over the Klong and it is absolutely disgusting. We rode on it for the first time this week. Woof. Smelt wretched. I'd rather not do that again. "Water" splashing on our faces...ick. Some things I've become less grossed out about here in Thailand like eating bugs, questionable meats and street food, eating with my hands, I stopped worrying about the cleanliness of dishes as well as the water that people give me. I could go on and on. But when it comes to smells I'm such a wimp. 

Our bedroom has been smelling like cigarette smoke the last few days...we can't figure out where it's coming from. Very concerning. And why is it just that one room? We're moving our beds today. Still not quite settled. Hopefully we'll have some hot water this week.

Wednesday was mission leadership council and also the craziest day full of lil hiccups and tender mercies. First with MLC: The mission is pressing forward with the work. Just when I think the work has been sufficiently hastened, some other miracle happens and another prepared person comes into the church who has been looking for truth is baptized. I'm excited to learn more about how we're going to keep up with all this hastening at zone conference this week. 

So after the meeting Sister Carter and I began our quest "down the street" to the Bangkok hospital. We just needed to pick up some medicine and the Elders told us it was just down the street. So we walked and contacted everyone we walked past and then all the sudden it had been an hour "down the street". Minor hiccup. We walked some more, found a seven, bought some water and eventually came upon some signs directing us to turn left and then left again walk straight and then turn left to get to the hospital. That was an adventure. We went inside, met this interesting doctor that wan't very helpful. We were making phone calls back and forth with Sister Senior and some of our investigators and then our phone died. We could no longer use the tool of our work! Hiccup. So we finally got what we needed and left the hospital. We were late to our appointment and had no way of contacting our investigator. I felt surprisingly calm about the whole situation. So instead of walking the hour down the street back to the church, we hopped in a taxi. Tender mercy yay public transportation! We quickly realized the driver was kind of not really all there, not listening as we told him where we'd like to go and his face didn't match the picture on his lil license thing. Hiccup. So we got out. That was easy. We found a new not sketchy taxi. We got to the church safely, tender mercy, phone still dead and in walked our two investigators whose appointment was set for an hour earlier. Tender mercy! They apologized for being late and we thanked them! We were able to teach all the investigators that we thought we'd be late for and everything got done! It wasn't how we expected it, but we had faith that things would work out and they did! There were a lot of lil prayers throughout the hiccups and the tender mercies and it was really comforting to see how the Lord's hand was in the work all day in everything that we did including the people that we met along the way contacting. 

I'm so grateful for prayer. All day every day. We can't progress without prayer. 

Dad, that is so sad about the lil boy that cried during this self worth activity you wrote me about. I was actually thinking about this last night as we were walking home we walked by this group of teens that weren't interested in our invitation I just thought if they would sit and listen for five minutes they would know that the the gospel of Jesus Christ can truly heal our hearts. Knowing that we are children of God gives me so much confidence and a feeling of self worth. 

We had this awesome lesson with our investigator Rae yesterday. She just has real questions and a sincere desire to know truth. Her heart is open. I wish those kids would open their hearts to listen for just even a minute. I loved that lesson with Rae so much because it was just so real. We talked about the principles of the gospel and the restoration, but we made it real and applicable to her and her own life. The gospel is like that for each of us. Rae has been going to churches since she was 14 and now she's 29. She said that our church is very different than a lot of other meetings she's been in. She observed that it is very personal, more internal. She was so surprised at the simpleness of the topics that were talked about, faith and repentance. I realized what a blessing that is for each of us to be able to go to church and no matter where we are in our understanding and testimony or conversion, we are able to come and be taught by the spirit personally the things that will help us the most. It is very internal and if we're not prepared or we aren't proactive about acting on these personal internal impressions or thoughts we receive we won't really be changed be what we learned and all these meetings that we have won't be of much worth to us. But if we are attentive and listen, the spirit will teach us exactly what we need personally. What a blessing personal revelation is and the opportunity we have to learn and grow each time we gather for meetings or whenever we study on our own. 

I hope you all have a wonderful week! I love you so much!

Love,

Sister Sahagun

New Area

This is the view of Bangkok from our apartment on the 33rd floor!

Dear Family,

Life in Bangkok is crazy!! We had 6 Elders helping us move into our new apartment today. Moving is a lot of work. I'm so grateful we had so much help. I'm so happy we can almost unpack now. We are now one stop away from the church on the MRT and we live right behind central plaza. SO convenient. We're really happy.

This week feels like a blur, I can't believe we've already been here for a week. Time feels like it just keeps getting faster. And you keep asking about school and all this stuff that feels like so far away. I'm not sure when my go home date is for sure. It was the 29th of August, but that's the day before school starts. I want to go to school. But I don't. I'll stay here forever. Yes I guess well I'll need to figure that out and let you know what to sign me up for. 

Electric wiring in Thailand!

English class was a success! I say that because this week was the first time Elder Chelson has taught English in 5 months. I am now the English Leader. (Everyone dreads this calling) But I've accepted the challenge. The Elders just want to teach and baptize and not teach English. Good intentions, but English must go on. It's hard because we have 12 missionaries and only 3 classes so we just need to find something for everyone to do. 

My theme for this transfer is "Be strong." We were in the office trying to figure out stuff for our house and moving and Sister Senior was listening in on the conversation. No one was making a decision and from behind she just mouthed " Be strong!" There's already been plenty of opportunities for me to apply this. It's great. Still a work in progress. So far the positive results of this are English participation, our new apartment, and our investigators are progressing great!

Funny bathroom signs!

Yesterday Bishop Stevenson the presiding Bishop of the church came and spoke to all the missionaries in Bangkok. It was a wonderful meeting. I was reminded of the importance of this calling to invite and help others as a representative of Jesus Christ. He said so many wonderful things about the Seniors. I am so grateful for President and Sister Senior. I feel so spoiled to be working so closely with them. 

Mickey and Om

Eight girls were baptized this Sunday! Our investigator Mickey was one of them! We met here our first day here and it's been so incredible to see how she's changed. The Atonement is so real. Repentance brings peace, renewed hope, and greater confidence into our lives. I know that the minute we begin seek our Heavenly Father through faith and repentance, we will immediately be blessed with His spirit and begin to change our lives to become more like Him. No matter where we are on the path of conversion, we are blessed by God's love and the light of the gospel. I know this church is true! Have a wonderful week! 

Baptisms!

Love,

Sister Sahagun

The Sisters serving in the Thailand Bangkok Mission