Week 18: Where to start.....

This week's been insane! It's honestly been one of the craziest weeks of my life. On Monday, we went to the zoo for P-day. I got to hold this huuuuuge python and this weird looking raccoon thing. I'll attach pics. We took a tour of the zoo on a big golf cart and saw a whole bunch of random animals, lions, tigers, zebras, giraffes etc. For some reason, there were barely fences to keep these animals away from everyone, but it made the whole thing ten times cooler. On Wednesday, Thailand had a national holiday called "Loy Grah Tong". Basically what happens is that people here buy lanterns and float them off in the sky (like In Tangled). Unfortunately, Ubon wasn't allowed to do it this year because of fire hazards and the chance of them hitting planes. They were still able to float lanterns off in lakes and rivers though. Loy Grah Tong is a Buddhist holiday and since 95% of the people here are Buddhist, it was a pretty big event. We tried to contact people there but there were so many things going on that it was hard to find anyone.

On Thursday, our ward had a Thanksgiving meal at the church. It wasn't anything like Thanksgiving back home but the message of gratitude was still the same. It was awesome. We put on a Thanksgiving play with some of the members of what happened when the Pilgrims got to America. I don't even think half of the play was accurate but it was still a good time for sure. The ward here is so crazy. I don't know how to describe it but basically people here aren't afraid of being themselves and just having a good time with everyone. So many people in the ward just have really funny personalities. They aren't afraid of saying what's on their mind. They'll turn insults into good laughs. I've been roasted here almost everyday. For example, since I'm half Chinese half white, a lot of people think I have a "white" nose, which are apparently way bigger than Asian noses. Anyway, they'll turn this into a joke and tell me that I look like I got a nose job because of it. And they always call my companion the leader of North Korea so there's that. I think we're all just used to this kind of stuff now honestly. Sorry if this email is all over the place, I'm just trying to get all my thoughts down. On Saturday, we were able to harvest rice for one of the members again. We also tried to fish our lunch with nets. That was.... interesting. We found a pond on the member's property and just tried to catch some fish by throwing the net in the water. We were horrible. We caught like 6 baby fish. One of the locals eventually came over and helped us out. As missionaries, we weren't allowed to go in the water so our help was very limited. Anyway, it was still good that we were there that day to support the members and help them out with the rice picking. 

We had four baptisms on Sunday!! Woohoo! We've finally been able to get some baptisms in with the other missionaries here. One of the sisters that got baptized was Sister Gai. I contacted her about a month ago at one of the parks close by and it's been awesome to see her progress. She's 27 and works here in Ubon. She's really quiet and really short, but she's funny and she's always in a good mood haha. When I first met her, I had a strong impression to go up and talk to her. It's crazy to think that if I wasn't where I was at the time I was, she wouldn't have been able to get baptized. I'm so grateful that the Lord was preparing her to hear the gospel. I love this work. The good ALWAYS outweighs the bad. Always. Anyway, I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! There's so much to be thankful for this time of the year!

"Happiness is not in obtaining what you want, but in wanting what you have." -Joseph L Bishop

Elder Rawlinson