Zone Conference May 2011

Everyone at the baptism

Meg

(The older woman, Sister Watkins, is the cousin of a member in our ward so she sent these 2 pictures of Emily from Zone Conference.)

Hey there!

So this week was great! We had Zone Conference this Saturday. They had the sisters come on Friday so we got to stay in a hotel!!! I kept wanting to say that it was quite a party being with all the sisters but the elders quickly reminded me that it was not a party, but a blessing! Just full of blessings this week! It was a great zone conference! Pres. Smith kindly reminded me that I only have one more left. Sis. Smith went through all of our Area books and planners. Her comment about my planner was, " I was expecting a neat, organized planner, but no. " I told her that I tend to write sloppy because I'm just too tired to write it neatly. She told me, "Just do what you've gotta do, Sis. Henderson." :)

We got a call on Friday from Muk about how she broke the Word of Wisdom. We were kind of panicing because she was going to get baptized this Sunday. We talked to her about it. I asked what she did and she said, "Sister, I had to work really late so I didn't get to bed till early in the morning." I was like, "okay.... so..... " "So, ya, we're not supposed to stay up late, right?" Sis. Lish and I had a good laugh at that one!

Needless to say we had our 2 and Elder's 4 get baptized this sunday. So cute!!!

Another great story. We were teaching one of our investigators who used to live in America. We were talking about honoring the laws of the country. She started talking about how much she loved the USA laws. She told us that she could never break them because they are "sacred." Well, whatever works for her!

One of the members had a baby so we went to the hospital to support her! So cute!!!

Love you all!!!!

Em

I have more pics but no time!

So After I was Kidnapped.............

Hello!

So this week we had a lizard in our bedroom.... that was entertaining! Wish the whole thing was on film! We finally caught him under a big bowl and threw him outside. Except when we threw him, he just layed there on the street like we killed him.... we thought we did.

But good news everyone, he's a great actor! I've attached some pictures of him. Not sure if he's dangerous. Oh well!

This Tuesday the members kidnapped us and drove us out to the land of rice fields about 40 min. away. They wanted to give us referrals. All of the Bishopbric and auxiliary leaders went too. So they take us to these random houses to teach them. I don't think they told them that we were coming. It was really funny! Try teaching with 8 other people trying to teach too. Not to mention that none of these people spoke Thai. They all spoke Lao. Fortunately everything got translated over. In the end none of them were really interested. No worries, we didn't go in vain. One of the referrals has read the Book of Mormon and wants to get baptized. Great!

Speaking of baptisms. Meg and Muk should be getting baptized this Sunday. That will be fun! The Elders have a family getting baptized too. 8 people are getting baptized! I'm just glad the Elders can prepare everything for Sunday and not me! Good deal!

We have Zone Conference this week!

Love you all sooooo much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Em

Houses started but never quite finished.... yikes, thai construction!

Transfers last week

Emily and her new companion, Sister Lish

Emily and Sister Janis Smith

Pictures courtesy of Janis Smith, the Mission President's wife

I Survived Friday the 13th!!!!!!

The buddhist temple at the park

The park

The district: me,Sis. Eyestone, E. Sheremeto, E. Tibbets, E. Merrell, E. Crowley.

Sis. Eyestone and I eating our sorrows away

Sister Eyestone

It's raining!

Hello everyone!
This week has been quite an adventure indeed! Sis. Eyestone got the call on Tuesday that she was leaving. She was so upset because the baptism was this Friday. We definitely did not expect that one coming. All the members were pretty upset about it too. We left at 7 pm on Wednesday and got to Bangkok at around 6:30 am. Yay for bus rides! It was fun to finally meet up with all the sisters. You know, at this point of my mission I’ve almost been companions with all of them. So ya! Pretty much everyone moved this transfer. It was very unexpected. The meeting itself was crazy! The Elders in my MTC district are training!!!! And Elder Chapman is in the office… Elder Lyman is having a blast in the International Branch. It’s so cool to see them all grown-up! *sniffle* All of the leaders that guided me as a greenie are dying this past move or this up-coming one. 13 elders are finishing next transfer meeting! That’s pretty much all of our zone leaders and district leaders. Crazy! Then all the sisters will start going home! Wow! So fast!
Anyways so it’s been Sis. Eyestone’s dream to work with me in Roiet and then go up to Chiangmai with Sis. Chambers. Well, that’s what happened. You should’ve seen their reaction. They almost took a bunch of Elders out as they ran to each other in excitement. All Pres. Smith said was, “Why don’t Elders react like that?” My new companion is the oh so cute and funny Sis. Lish. She actually was trained by Sis. Chambers. Small world! Ya, it gets even smaller. After talking together we discovered that we both went to Byu-idaho, lived at Nauvoo house, and were in the SAME student ward at the same time!!!!! And yet, we never knew each other until this point. Hahaha! We enjoy talking about all those crazy people in our ward. It’s a way small world! She’s from Las Vegas and she’s way cute. She was just companions with sis. Jongkaew (we’ve been the only 2 farang companions to serve with her) so I completely understand everything. J
We didn’t get back till midnight on Thursday. Yikes!
Oh, Sis. Lish has a little sister named Kylie who is 10 yrs. old. She wants to write Holly, more like email. So if you receive them have her write back! :-)

Thanks for the package…. I opened up a box of wheat thins while waiting for my companion to come back from visas so that all the Thai missionaries could try it. They all loved it. I gave the rest of the box to Sis. Eyestone because it was our plan to eat them on the bus back. Oh well! Yesterday our regular Sunday dinner didn’t work out so we were fortunate to have the mac’n cheese. Thanks!
Also thank you Berna for the Easter card!!!
Also thank you Catherine for the CD. That is definitely appreciated!!!!

Nan with her husband GopOkay…. Drumroll……. Nan’s baptism was AMAZING!!!! I bawled. We made a bouquet of flowers for her. Her husband was there. Half the branch showed up even though it was raining. The talks were great and the musical number was classic. Sis. Lish, Elder Buckner, and I sang “I like to look for rainbows” in Thai with Elder Crowley at the piano. Hahaha! That was great! Then we had the baptism. She was just beaming! It was so cute! Her testimony..... was one of the best testimonies I have ever heard. She got up there and just started bawling... so I bawled too. She just talked about how much of a miracle her conversion was and how everything is true. She talked about how much she wants to go to the temple and be sealed to her husband. She really lost it when she said how much she wants her husband to be a priesthood holder. It was just so cute! Afterwards she was like, "I just can't stop crying! I'm so happy!" I love her!
Her confirmation was great too. He blessed her to have an eternal family and such. She was just glowing after that. It was just a really touching experience to be a part of. No worries! I made sure Sis. Eyestone got to talk to her and such. I felt so bad that she had to miss it. It just killed her.

Muk is doing great! After Nan's baptism, it just made her so excited to get baptized too! Everyone at church yesterday randomly thought she was already a member. hahaha!

Me, Nan, Sis. Lish, Muk

nan, gop, Branch Pres., Waruni, pa kiaw, and pa witipon

nan, Branch Pres., and Waruni

Us,,, ya, don't know how to work the camera!

Well, I best be going!

Love you all!!!!

Em

Happy May Day!!!!!!!

Well, seems we are in a similar weather pattern. It apparently never rains during these months, but it's rained almost everyday this past week. Crazy!

This past week everyone was talking and gearing up for Prince William's wedding. I think EVERYONE and their dog watched it. It was so funny to go out inviting last week. People always ask where my name is from. I tell them England. Then they automatically think I'm British. :-) People kept asking me if I was going to go home for the wedding. They insisted I should be there. I was thinking, "Well of course! I've got a VIP wedding invitation since my aunt is good friends with the Queen." hahahaha! That gave us a good laugh. People kept asking us what church they are from. I'm just glad I was very well educated on the subject of British royalty.

I went to Ubon this past week to exchange with Sis. Johnson. Sis. Supansa came here with Sis. Eyestone. Ubon is a very nice area, but I prefer my little Roiet. Plus, everyone speaks Thai instead of Lao over hear. While I was there, we were teaching someone and just after the prayer, I saw the dog looked a little weird. I ask about it and she ignored it. I insisted something was up. And then to all our surprise, a puppy was born. Yes, I was glad to witness all of that. Also it was Sis. Johnson's birthday on Wed. so the sisters surprised her with an ice cream cake at district meeting. I don't know who was more surprised, the district leader or her. We went out to pizza company and really celebrated. Sis. Supansa was so sweet and gave me a gift. It was a Thai scripture case with my name on it. There's a lady in Ubon who makes a living off of those! It's way cute!

The rest of my week was a little crazy. Oh, we had a 19 yr old walk into English class. The next day we gave her a date to be baptized at the end of the month. Afterwards we prayed together and she received her answer. She's had miracles upon miracles since then. Way awesome! She's what we like to call *golden*!
So ya!

Well, love you all!!!

hahaha!

Em

Here's the pic of the week: I don't know about you, but it seems that Chihuahua is about ready to bite our heads off!

It was a Good Friday.....Saturday....and Sunday

The road to our house! What makes the red roads red? Sis. Eyestone trying to lock our stupid lock.

us together

Noppamas, Sis. Sod, Sis. Fon

Hello everyone!

Great week!
We didn't dye any eggs for the Easter Bunny, but we did leave him a pass-a-long card about the true meaning of Easter. I suppose he didn't like that because he didn't leave us anything else in return...

Me on my birthday!

The cupcakes were amazing! Thank you so much for them. Yes the frosting held up just fine. hahaha! We had quite a flame with those candles! It was quite a party. I stuck all the candles in one cupcake which ended up smooshing it. hahaha!

For my birthday, we had zone training in the morning. So that was really nice. Then we went to Black Canyon Coffee which has the best imported American food. After that to Dairy Queen. Then we worked and enjoyed a rather splendid day. The best part was when one of our investigators told us that she has finally quit all of her drinking and is keeping the word of wisdom!!!!! YAY!!!!

Funny enough, none of the people in the branch knew it was Easter let alone what Easter was. hahaha! Hilarious! We did enjoy delicious steak and mashed potatoes at a members house though for the occasion.

Okay, the water buffalo story...
So we were out inviting when we ran into this guy who's inactive, but we didn't know he was a member until later. He went off talking about Cherry this, Cherry that. We thought he was talking about one of the sister missionaries that served here awhile back. Then he was like, "You came to ride her didn't you?" I was really lost at this point. He walked us through his rice fields and there we met the Cherry. So he let us ride her. More like he insisted we ride her. Cherry is pretty much his most prized possession. It was really random. It made the Elders really jealous when they heard about that one. So yes, everyone does have a water buffalo!

Today I'm going to Ubon for the week. Should be interesting!

Love you all!!!!!

Em

Happy Birthday to Me!!!!!!!

Me riding a water buffalo.... (tell that story later) .... her name is Cherry

Our district wearing our songkran shirts

First off HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and Happy Birthday Nana!!!!!!!!!!!!! and Happy Earth Day!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and Happy Easter!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Needless to say, this is probably the best week of the whole year!

Okay, imagine if you will Tera Maria Dr. packed with pick-up trucks going both directions. Each truck has about 5 to 10 people in the back with a huge cooler of water. They're slowly driving past each other as they scoop bowls full of water and throw it at each other. Then there are people running around slathering baby powder on everyone's faces. Then every house on the street is out with their hose squirting water and they have their own huge buckets of water they are throwing too. Each house is blasting their own music people are dancing in the streets and on the yards.

a car covered in powder (all cars looked like this afterwards)Now imagine trying to ride a bike through all of that. Then imagine the whole street is going after you trying to cover you in powder and water. Yep, that was my life this past week. There wasn't a place where people didn't play songkran.

















We came home everyday soaked to the bone and our faces just covered in powder. Some of the water was ice cold which was a little shocking.


The ward activity was so much fun. I wish I had the time to explain all of it but I don't. Join me after the mission for the complete story of songkran. It was just funny because everyone at the party insisted that I teach them how to dance Hawaiian. I don't know anything. Just what Sis. Supansa taught me from her hula class. They insisted that I must be an expert by the way I danced before. hahaha! Well, gave it my best shot!

So with all this going on, no one was free or willing to listen to us. So we spent our days trying to tract but in reality, just getting more wet. One of the days we went to a members house where she wanted us to take down trees full of red ants. That was hilarious! They hurt so bad! Don't worry, we got two of them down. two more to go!!!!

Eason means the countryside of Thailand. This is traditional Thai (eason) food. Somtum, grilled chicken with sticky rice

Love you all!!!

Em