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| our last lesson with แป๋ว (Baew) at her shop! |
I don't know about you guys, but it feels like it has been about 10 years since I last emailed you..... SO MUCH HAS HAPPENED!!
I am glad everyone is doing so well, I think one bright side of Brad's surgery right now is that we at least get to see what his face portion would look like if he were to get really fat cause we know in real life we are never going to see Brad fat... haaaaaaaa really though, I have been praying for you everyday big guy and it is for sure just going to be but a small moment!
Also SO STOKED ON SISTER HEIDEN!!!! Can't wait to be serving alongside one another in the best work there is to engage in... Ellie, prepare yourself for greater happiness than you have ever known!
And that is just where I'm at right now.......... so happy! I will not keep you waiting any longer and just come out and say it, I transferred and I AM IN CHIANG MAI with Sister Magbanua!!! UdornThani to ChiangMai--------->literally from one Promised Land to another.... with another DREAM companion. She is just a little ray of sunshine... already so good at the language, SUCH a good missionary, and so so fun! Also she is Filipino and from New Zealand which I think just gives us major style points! We are "whitewashing"/ reopening the area here, so we are literally starting from an Area Book of lots of inactives and zero investigators.. Definitely so humbling, but there is no one I would rather take on a challenge like this with than Sister Mags! We both just feel this peace and this energy about the work we have been called to do.
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| Mags on her BIKE!! |
So early last week was bittersweet back in good ole' Udorn finding out that Sister Olsen and I were both going to be leaving (seriously you guys that girl is my sister... Heavenly Father sent me to Udorn in part because I needed to meet my best friend!) . It was Sister McKnight's birthday on Monday so we celebrated with our fave Vietnamese and had a way good FHE celebration with the members... so fun! As Sis Forte and I met with Nooker and เล็ก (Lek), we decided that it would be best to have their baptisms on a Sunday instead of right before I left... it is about them, not me! I will send pics for sure when I get them from Sis Forte so you can put some faces to the names and see them in W-H-I-T-E. They are both SO ready.Like I always say, the hardest part about leaving an area... THE PEOPLE! Missionaries, members, investigators, your regular food people.....Riding off on the bus with the whole crew just standing there waving us off felt like I was leaving my own family again.. it was the best of the best in Udorn and I will never forget any of them!
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| so Sister McKnight turns 20...... so what better way to celebrate your companion's birthday than to buy TWENTY rotdiis??? They are like little elephant ears......20 of them Sister Olsen knows how to celebrate!!!!!! (**they ate them ALL) |
This leads me to one of my favorite miracles of the week.... OH MY GOSH. So there were like 5 of us transferring from Udorn which means like 15 HEAVY suitcases, lots of bikes and a lot of chaos getting from one place to the next. Like they even had to send 2 of Sister Olsen and my bags on a different bus cause it was already overloaded! (no this is not because of the shopping we did in Udorn.... it was because of our books obviously HAAAA) So we get to the bus station in Bangkok and the Elders get these 2 guys that are going to take us to the transfer meeting. They load all of our stuff into the back of a truck, then the only left over bag is Sister Olsen's big one with all of her clothes, so we put that one in the back of the taxi and we disperse into the two vehicles. We were a little bit like "Umm ok Elders, where on earth did you find this person with a truck and why are we taking this grossest faded pink taxi with no words on the side...but we will just go with it!" So we get there, the guys were way nice, like they help missionaries get to transfers a lot I think, and then we get everything unloaded and they drive away.... but it takes only a few minutes to realize that WE NEVER GOT SISTER OLSEN'S BAG OUT OF THE BACK OF THE TAXI! Some Elders try to run down the road to find him, but it was Bangkok traffic and already too late.... Sis Olsen was trying not to stress about it, have some faith that it will show up, making jokes that we will just set up a booth with a "donations for Sister Olsen" sign and just get a dress here and a garment top there from all of the other missionaries...ha! We say a prayer, finish transfer meeting, and still he hadn't come back. OMG. So with our new companions, Sister Olsen and I take a taxi back to the bus station like 40 min away, (I could not just leave my girl hanging!) and sure enough, in the taxi area where all of the shiny pink taxis with words on the side park, what taxi were we able to spot with ease????? the gross faded pink taxi with no words on the side thats what taxi! hahaha we died at the fact that what we were like "bugged" with that morning was the exact miracle later that day... the Lord's ways are so curious and you can all rest at ease, Sister Olsen is still the best dressed missionary out there!!
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| The Elders in "the taxi" hahaha the guy was literally so funny, he helped us get our stuff, then put Elder Tamang's helmet on cause we had no more free hands, then proceeded to wear it until we got to the church! |
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| THE BAG!!!! |
It wasn't until LATE that night that we got on our train to head off to ChiangMai and it was probably the longest travels of my life! hahaha it was a sleeper train, so we each had a little bed area, but I felt like I just kept waking up and looking out the window and we were just still winding around the mountainous jungle..... it is SO UNREAL here! We didn't actually get to ChiangMai until Friday like late afternoon! Insane! But a way warm welcome from the members and the work is underway! Sunday was sooo good just getting to know everyone at church and Sister Peck, the only Sister of us four that isn't new here, has been SO good about showing us around and helping us out. We are so grateful!
But Sunday was the other greatest miracle! We had been inviting on Saturday and I invited this Chinese man who barely spoke any Thai at all. He said he would come on Sunday, but when I called Sunday morning he said he wouldn't be able to. Something changed though, and we are standing in the hall making calls for church to start, and in walks Ming! On top of that, about the same time, in walks a group of friends traveling, and one of them had totally served her mish in Taiwan so she could speak with him in Chinese! The only problem was she couldn't go Thai to Chinese, so instead of pulling a whole translation train, me into her ear Thai to English, her into his ear English to Chinese, she just wore a headset and was in business! Come to find out his wife and daughter go to church in HongKong and his daughter has sent him stuff about how to pray etc..... we are meeting with him the week before he goes back to China for a bit.. Pray that we can touch his heart and communicate to him the gospel truths in some language or another!
We are ready to hit this week HARD now that we have gotten a little bit under our belts... here is some other good stuff I can't leave you without:
-our house here is CRAZY yucky but never fear, we are moving at the end of the month to a new house that none other than the unstoppable power duo Elder and Sister Stoker searched high and low and found for us! Pray that we survive until then ;)
- yes you heard right, THE STOKERS ARE IN CHIANGMAI as well! They got here a few weeks ago and we are going to get the North ready for a Stake!!! It was so cute, I called them from our new ChiangMai phone right after transfers, and Elder Stoker answered the phone, and before I even said who it was or that I was going to ChiangMai, he just says "one moment" and yells to Sister Stoker, "HONEY, THEY'RE GIVING US SISTER MORGAN!" haha I am so excited to work with them again........ such a privileged! Not to mention, she totally made me steamed broccoli for dinner last night cause she knew I would not like french toast.......... hahaha she is so great!
-thank you for the best package ever!!! I am DYING over the letters and handwriting of all of the cousins..... Summer, Sarah, and Nicole since when are you not the little babies Erica and I were timing each other to take turns holding?! Thank you so much everyone for the love! And the new ipod.... mom you NAILED IT..... loving it all so much.
-Sister Lor from my MTC group is here too! I cannot believe I have gotten to be in four Sister houses with first Coatsie now Lor, my two besties from the MTC. sooo fun!
-ChiangMai is the craziest/coolest place... in the center there is this mote... a literal mote that was used in ancient days to keep intruders out. So everything is centered around this mote and the traffic is all one way on one side and all the other way on the other.. Poor Mags is learning how to bike in the hardest area in Thailand! I keep assuring her that if she can master biking here, she will be a pro everywhere else! Pray that we can get things down here and remember all of the routes and be safe too! Seriously look up a map of ChiangMai, its nuts!
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| the mote walls........more ChiangMai pics to come! |
-So many opportunities in these branches to translate! I translated for Primary and then for the Relief Society lesson because the teacher was a lady in the branch from Denmark! It was definitely fun/ soooo funny at times.... like when the little primary girl is demanding a translation or when I was using some vocab from the scriptures in the Relief Society lesson and was informed by the members that it was WAY too harsh of a word to use for "hypocrisy" hahaha how am I supposed to know these things?! they were sweet and I now know the 'lighter' word that us regular people use for one who doesn't do what they say, not the one the prophets of old were using to call to repentance...
-speaking of hypocrisy... this is the challenge of the week: Read President Uchtdorf's talk from last conference Priesthood session, "On Being Genuine" you will be CHANGED! It has been on my mind all week and I know you will love love love
-There are some people in the branch here, the Chambers, who are good friends with the Radfords that I met back in my greenie days in Bangnaa... reunited all this time later! He is the BML and they are so awesome.
-Ok and to close with a laugh......Do you guys remember that scene from the office where Pam is pregnant and having morning sickness and throwing up cause Dwight's food smells so bad, and it is just like this chain reaction causing everyone to throw up or like dry heave cause they see someone else throwing up......... hahaha we totally had that in the flesh the other day at our house... Sister Lor had ran over a frog or something and had it's guts all over her skirt and she realizes it and starts freaking out and dry heaving, then that starts Sister Peck and Sister Mags and I am just sitting there laughing soooo hard dying (kind of like when the camera flashes over to Creed and he is just like eating soup looking around at all of the madness) hahaha oh the glamorous life of the Sisters in the TBM.......
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| Sister Lor cleaning the contaminated skirt HAHAHA |
I love you guys, we are happy and healthy and working hard. I have felt more than ever that the Lord knows me, Sister Sarah Morgan, He knows my strengths, my weaknesses, my abilities, my desires. I am continually humbled to be able to do His work, to see His hand daily in my life and in the lives of others. Its the very best best best.
cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeers
Sister Morgan
xoxo prayers coming your way as always, have the best week!
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