Christmas in July

Dearest Family,

Hello! Thailand is still the best mission in the world and this was a wonderful week! One of my favorite things about Thai is how polite people are. "kha" (for girls) and "kha phom" (for boys) is just the polite word that you say at the end of your phrase or it just means yes and it's really polite and adorable.

I love it. 

This week Sister Tilley and I celebrated Christmas in July! We taught everyone about Christ (like we do every day) had a breakfast Christmas casserole, wrapped up PJ's and put them under our pretzel Christmas tree, we jammed to some MOTAB featuring David Archuleta, and you know I found some curlers and kept up that great tradition. The curls were great for about 5 minutes and then quickly vanished. It was a wonderful day and I'm so excited for real Christmas! Joy to the world! 

Jesus Christ is our Savior! Let every heart prepare him room!!

Tuesday was the best day ever. I've never felt so productive on a Tuesday. District Meeting and English class take up a huge chunk of the day, but this week we had three lessons with members, invited our new investigator นำพัน to be baptized, and prepared a sweet lesson for English class. At District Meeting I finally got to watch the Work of Salvation in English! I'm so motivated, I'm going to be the best member ever. English class turned out to be so quiet! It was raining so not very many people came, but usually we have about 40 15 year old kids and it's a zoo. But this week no one said anything! It was weird and really hard because no one was participating! Any suggestions for fun things we can do to get people to participate. Usually a good game is the trick but this week that didn't even work. I think we may just need to speak more Thai since it's the basic class. After English class, this cute 18 year old girl named Donut came up told us she wanted to learn about Christ! Yes! She is so humble, I'm so excited to help her prepare to be baptized!

We met with this amazing recent convert family from Shri Lanka on Saturday, I love them. Their dad died in the war 6 years ago and the doctrine of eternal families has blessed their lives so much and brought them a lot of comfort. We talked to them about doing family history and they are already doing it! They are refuges trying to move to Australia. It's really humbling to meet and teach these people that have been chased out of their country that have so little and then give so much to us when we visit. I love them.

Yesterday Sister Tulley and I were talking about how the Lord has called us here and simply needs us to be ourselves, using all of our talents and improving who we already are. We're committed to being real with our investigators and being more ourselves. We went contacting last night with this commitment in mind and it was so much more natural and fun to talk with the people that we met and then to share the gospel with them. This week we also had a companion exchange and I learned so much from Sister Wiganda. I'm going to focus on helping my investigators apply the gospel to their lives. Our investigators right now are two 15 year old girls and two 20 year old girls, so it should be easy to relate to them and help them see how the gospel can bless our lives each day. I'm grateful for the things I'm learning and for the Atonement that makes it possible for me to become better. 

I love you all so much! I know that the source of peace in this life is through our Savior Jesus Christ. John 16:33 Trust in Him! Have a wonderful week!

Love, Love, 

Sister Sahagun

Thailand is gorgeous!

Dearest Family,

Life is sooo good! We are here in our favorite internet cafe with all these lil asian boys that are yelling at each other and playing games. It's really intense and I'm struggling to not get caught up in it. My heart is seriously racing right now it hurts. I just wish I knew which person to cheer for and then I could really be a part of this. Sister Tilley is just yelling to add to the noise. We just have to laugh at ourselves.

So sorry my emails have been a bit lame lately...Mom I took some notes this week in my planner so this should be a lil more exciting. First off, Thailand is full of confused people. Have I ever told you about the lil graven image shop by our house? Super classy, barbed wire fence, every animal you could think of plus this really nice pile of broken ones. There's this big elephant statue outside our apartment too and this morning this lady came out and put a perfectly good plate of delectable mangoes right in front of it. NO! Those are for people! Such a strange culture. 

This was on the street just up from our house. I'm pretty sure it's not legal to ride one of these in the street!

I can't believe how fast this week flew by. Sister Tilley and I did a lot of less active work this week and focused on having balanced key indicators. We were busy and tired everyday and just so happy. We were so blessed this week! We had two referrals from members to teach their family members and got four new investigators. I know that we have been blessed for the time we have spent contacting. Yesterday, these two 15 year old girls just walked into the church looking to learn about Jesus Christ. There truly are people prepared to hear the gospel. I am so grateful for the many miracles that we have received this week. I love being a missionary. The good things that are happening here is truly the work of the Lord. I am trying to be a better vessel for my Heavenly Father each day.

One of the less actives we visited this week is Brother Wolf he's American married a Thai woman and really I just don't know how to explain him. He is about 50, quite the talker  has a bajillion life stories, loves food, loves to cook, loves to eat. He just recently got out of the hospital and is wheelchair bound. We went over to see how he was recovering and he just talked our ears off and fed us food that just about made Sister Tilley throw up on me. He served us white anchovies and 14,000 baht caviar. So fishy and so salty and just a really rough experience. He also fed us goose liver. I actually liked that better than the anchovy. The highlight was that he asked us to teach his wife so we're just focusing on that. We'll see if we can avoid any dinner appointments there.

Thai people are so happy and smiley and just pretty matter of fact. Everyone is super open about weight too. Last week one of the members came up to me and said Sister Sahagun you gained weight! Uh,Thank you? Sister Tilley and I are still trying to figure out how to respond to that one...it's a lil depressing especially because I don't feel like I gaining any weight as we bike all over the land every day haha oh well. 

Yesterday at church these two adorable girls came to church that had come I think two weeks ago. That was Sister Tilley's first week and she was panicking running out of things to talk about and the girl just grabbed her hand and said Justin Beiber. It was hillarical. Anywho, we were so happy that they came back we gave them The Book of Mormon and can't wait to give them Justin Beiber stickers and teach them more about the gospel.

Remember my stalker? Well, he managed to find us 4 times this week while we were out and about - out of the 16 million people here...anyway I usually don't understand about 60% of what he is saying but this time during his lil tangent of Thai with a slight lisp we heard the English word lover and freaked out. We were just real frazzled and I just told him that wasn't appropriate and bore my testimony and told him why we came to Thailand...just what missionaries do ya know. He received that well and quickly rode away. There was no citing of him at church and we are ever so grateful. I hope he reads the restoration pamphlet and learns with the Elders someday.

I love you all so much! Have a most glorious week. Keep being consistent in the things that you know are true and expect miracles! 

Love, Love,

Sister Sahagun

Dearest Family,

I'm so happy! Happy as a dappy! There's just no way you can understand how great it is to be a missionary here in Thailand right now with Sister Tilley. Our favorite thing to say is "tight". Like we had a tight day, or our  our schedules pretty tight, or our muscles are tight. Maybe it's not that funny. Did I mention we have a new district leader? Well it's the truth, and well he just makes everything really intense. He's really great, everything is just a major big deal and we are way chill so it's funny. I don't know why I'm telling you this random information.

Saturday we spent the whole day with the youth! It was a missionary preparation activity and they were all at the church from 6:30 to 7:30 - pretty close to a full day of missionary work! They had a transfers meeting in the morning, companions, nametags, the works, and our job was to take them out Dan Jones-ing and support them in giving out a Book of Mormon and just contacting. It was so fun! They are so bold! A couple of the Elders said that the young men that they were with were on fire and just about gave this woman a baptismal date! These kids are so ready to be missionaries. I love contacting. Talking to people is so fun. We met a man from Israel who was super strong in his beliefs and not really into changing, but was very respectful of us going out and sharing what we believe. These youth were a really good example to me and reminded me of that fire that we need to have as we go about sharing this gospel. This is exciting news! They were literally running from person to person, it was hard to keep up. One girl, Bukkhi, was just showing us all up and didn't miss a single person that walked by her. We would be walking up the stairs, realize she wasn't with us, and then turn around to see that she was testifying to the lady with the food cart! Such a good example to me! I'm recommitted! Talk to everyone. 

We did most of our contacting at Central (the mall) and there was this huge animae (how do you spell that)convention happening and all these people dressed up as Asian cartoon characters it was hilarious and great. I wish I'd taken better pictures, but I'll send what I've got. 

On Wednesday night Sister Tilley and I were on our way home from a lesson when we almost quite literally ran into this man. He just stopped us and asked us what we were doing here. He was speaking English, he's from Ghana and then he just told us hes' been looking for the Church. Perfect! He's amazing. We met with him at the church the next night, gave him a tour of the chapel, gave him a Book of Mormon, he came to church on Sunday, I'm just so impressed by his faith in Christ. He's had aso many crazy life threatening experiences and terrible trials that have brought him closer to God. After talking with him, I really felt humbled and was reminded of the goodness and glory of God. He is our loving Heavenly Farther and protects us in so many ways. He places people in our lives that bless us and help us grow. I am so grateful for these teaching experiences that I feel like I get so much more out of.

Our little soi that we live on is so cute and I just love coming home at night and seeing the herd of angry dogs ferociously barking at us. It's really terrifying. Friday night there were literally 11 dogs that chased us down the road. Sister Tilley and I thought it was the end. We rode as fast as we could and then as soon as we were away from them Sister Tilley stopped and wanted to turn around and go back for a picture! What? We're crazy. The picture didn't even turn out.

We had zone training yesterday, Sister Tilley and I were asked to make cookies. Specifically cookies with too much salt that tasted bad. Object lesson! Unbalanced ingredients means not good cookies. Similarly, unbalanced key indicators means not good missionary work! This week we are committed to having balanced key indicators! Numbers are important! The Lord numbers his children, right?

I love you all have a wonderful week! The church is so true!!!

Love, Love,

Sister Sahagun

I'm a Trainer!

Dearest Family,

So I had a nightmare about a week ago that it was transfers meeting and I was standing in front of everyone just waiting to hear who my new companion was. It was just way too suspenseful and embarrassing and finally President Senior shows my picture and my new companion's picture on the screen and says "Surprise! You're training!" I felt so betrayed that no one had warned me and confused and I felt bad that my companions first impression of me was freaking out...haha!

So here's reality. Thursday morning I got a phone call from the AP, "Congratulations Sister Sahagun you will be training this transfer!" I had already had a nightmare about this moment and was prepared for this! This week was a lot of change and transition, but I have felt so much peace. Before Thursday I thought okay if that really were a thing I would maybe cry for a lil bit because I can't understand Thai, but then I would be fine because all I need is the companionship of the spirit, to be obedient, work diligently, and the Lord will take care of the rest! I have felt so much peace this week. The Lord trusts me, so I need to trust myself and see myself how He sees me. I'm exercising every ounce of faith that I have and praying so earnestly for me and to know what I need to do to be a better missionary. I'm so grateful that I'm still in Pak Kret. I know the area, I know the members and our investigators and that familiarity is so comforting! My new companion is Sister Tilley. She's from Brigham City, Utah and I absolutely love her. We are so similar and have already had some great experiences teaching together and finding. She is so prepared, really her Thai is way better than mine was when I got here. The word in Thai for greenie is nong kiaw. (nong is younger, kiaw is green) so all the while I've been nong kiaw and I just never want to let that title go, but know I'm ma kiaw (green mom). That's good enough for me. All the members and other missionaries in my district have been so supportive and everyone just tells us that we're going to learn so much and so fast. I surely hope so! I believe it. This is so exciting. There are 7 other Sisters from my MTC district that are training as well. Many of them are in new areas or opening areas where there have never been Sisters! I'm feeling good. I know that youth is know excuse! The Lord trusts the youth! It's really a humbling thought and I'm doing all that I can to be worthy of the spirit and the Lord's help.

So recently as I've shown people our beautiful family picture, everyone points to me and says who is that? I'm unrecognizable. The helmet hair is just too real. Then they point to Nick and Tyler and they're like Justin Bieber! Jessica has her tongue sticking out and everyone just thinks she's the cutest. Mom and Dad you are just so young and beautiful. Sure do love ya.

The word of the week - rawang. (Sorry for the terrible romanized spelling this keyboard is too complicated) Rawang means careful. I learned it a while ago, but recently I've been hearing it at least 127 times a day. Everyone is very concerned about our safety, especially when we tell them how far we ride our bikes. The other day this lady wa-ed me out pretty bad. She said I was going too too fast by this bus and she saw the whole thing but really I feel like the most cautious missionary. I promise I'm being safe. I'll start keeping a tally of that word so I can give you a more accurate account. Exaggerating is way too fun though.

Saturday night, Sister Tilley and I went to go visit Malee and New. (New is the one that likes to study religions) Malee just kind of cut me off mid sentence and said we're Buddhist, we aren't going to change. And when I asked her about New if he was still interested she just said he has already studied with us enough. He doesn't want to learn more. My heart is broken. I sound like a drama queen, but really I am just so sad. It's different when we're just out on the streets talking to people and they reject us, it's still sad, but this was so much harder. That day we read with New in the Book of Mormon about pressing forward with a steadfast in Christ and enduring to the end was so exciting and I saw his faith growing. It's hard to watch how others choose to use their agency. I really hope New keeps reading his Book of Mormon and that someday he'll learn again with the missionaries.

Sunday we had so many people at church! Sister Tilley was so amazing and just talked to everyone and took care of our people. Elder and Sister Taber our amazing senior couple needed a translator. so I gave that a try for about 2 and a half minutes. It was so stressful!! I would understand something but not know how to phrase it  and then they would just speak so fast onto the next thing. I just watched them laugh with me a couple rows ahead and then waved down the Elders to come rescue me. Someday I'll try again. We got to watch the worldwide training...in Thai. Loved it. Can't wait to watch it in English. My favorite part was that movie with the armies of Helaman! So good, I cried.

I love you all so much! Be a member missionary! Choose the right! Remember who you are! 

Happiness is being a missionary!

Dearest Family,

Hello! How are you? I finally got an email from Nick! It sounds like he is doing good, well we are actually both trying to figure out how to be ourselves ha that's fun. I'm feeling more confident about that this week. I was mostly just struggling with being myself around my companion, but things are getting better. Dad, thank you so much for sending that talk. You all send the most uplifting emails I am so blessed!

I am so happy to be a missionary! This week was really good. We met with a lot of less actives one of our less actives referred her less active friend too! That was a happy day. So we've had a couple companion exchanges this transfer, but this time instead of me going somewhere else to be trained by someone else, Sister Zaugg came here and I trained her. She has been here for 6 weeks and I have been here for 12. At first I was worried that it would be like the blind leading the blind, but it ended up being an amazing day with so many miracles. We started out the day with studies and then had to go get our bikes. The day before, Sister Carter and I were on our way to District meeting when she got a flat tire. So we walked our bikes through this neighborhood and found this house with a bunch of broken bikes outside. The lady next door told us if we left the bikes overnight, the man that lived there would fix them and we could just come get them the next day. So Sister Zaugg and I took a taxi to the general location of our bikes ( I was so nervous about communicating effectively to get us there) on the way we talked to our taxi driver and found out that he had a Book of Mormon and that he'd been to church before! We had a great lil lesson with him, got his phone number, and found exactly where our bikes where! The tire was all fixed and it was only 10 baht! That is seriously nothing! Miracles! All day we were able to get to the places we needed to, we understood people, and had good success contacting. Our mission president has asked us to spend two hours each day contacting. I don't mind it at all but most missionaries hate it. So really the hard part about contacting is just getting my companion on board. So anyway that was a great day of leading Sister Zaugg around Pak Kret. 

Thursday we met with May and her friend C. We recommitted May to a new date to be baptized and also invited her friend C who we just met! It was really exciting to see her friend C so excited about wanting to be baptized. C is already Christian! That really makes teaching so much easier. So many people don't know who God is and are way confused about who Jesus Christ is. With most of our other investigators we just teach about the Godhead the first couple of times that we see them to help them really understand.

Yesterday was such a good day! Sister Carter and I sang again in the International branch. I love singing with her. In the Thai branch, Sister Carter gave a talk (she may potentially most likely be moving this week - transfers are Thursday) and her talk was so good! I understood everything!! All day I felt great about communicating with the members in Thai. I speak Thai!! So crazy. There's a billion words I don't know, but the ones I know are the most frequently used so we're good. I'll keep working hard on my language study. Embarrassing moment from yesterday: So they asked us to take care of the music in Sacrament meeting for the International branch. Sister Carter leads the music and I press the start button on the self playing organ to get the hymns going. It's lovely. Well not all of the hymns are programmed into the organ and yesterday I went to start the sacrament hymn and it wasn't there! I had to play it!! It was super rough, I felt terrible, and I'm pretty sure it was for all to hear on the sound system out in the foyer. I need to practice!! For next week, I've made sure that all of the hymns are programmed in there already.

This week I've thought a lot about consistency. I found the Conference Ensign from 2010 in our apartment and read this quote from Elder Scott, " We become what we want to be by consistently being what we want to become." I love this so much! It goes along with what we talked about at zone conference with diligence and desire too. I've been thinking about how my investigators know how to pray, they've been given the scriptures and the tools to come closer to Christ, but unless they consistently read and pray, they won't be progressing. It reminded me of the 10 virgins - the five that tended their lamps consistently and added oil had continual light, but the ones that were not consostent or worried about continually tending their light lost it. I want my investigators to have continual light so that they can become truly converted and then be a light to others. I know this church is true. I know that by consistently doing the small and simple things our faith and testimony is strengthened.

Have a wonderful week! 

Love, Love,

Sister Sahagun

Dearest Family,

How are you? How is Nick? I have not heard from Elder Sahagun since Mother's Day and I just miss him! Will you please forward me his emails?

This last week was a bit of a struggle. We were not able to get in touch with of our investigator May all week! And we didn't see her last week either..AH! She has a date to be baptized this Saturday but she ha
sn't finished learning all the lessons and she's not really progressing like she was 3 weeks ago. We finally saw her yesterday after church, but she is so busy with school we can't see her til Thursday. I'm sad about that. 

There is a lot of work to be done in our little branch to strengthen the members. Yesterday the Young Women's President asked to be released from her calling because she can't get Sundays off. Mutual hasn't been the huge success that I had hoped for either. The hardest part is that the leaders are not able to come and don't really do much to help get the word out. The missionaries don't mind planning activities and contacting people, but everything we've tried hasn't been really effective. I think we just need to get the youth excited about living the gospel. Our focus this week is on lessons with recent converts and less actives. We're going to find all the lost people on our ward list! (Okay not really, that is not a realistic goal, but yes we are going on an intense adventure this week.)

Saturday we were able to help at the district primary program! The kids were so cute and had an amazing variety of talents of really cool traditional dances, hula hooping, singing, and just being cute. There was a group of four little girls that recited all 13 articles of faith! I was so impressed. Maybe that will be my next memorization goal for Thai.

Thanks for sharing your small victories mom, keep up the good work! It looks like you had a lot of fun with the Taiwanese students! Thanks for sharing pictures! I'm so happy you all got to go to the temple together! I miss the temple! I miss you! Have a wonderful week! 

Love, Love,

Sister Sahagun

Missionaries Arrive in Thailand

This video was just sent to us by Heather's Mission President. It's footage from the first day she arrived in Thailand. 

Warning: May cause some tears!