SO Aroy!

Well Family and Friends,

This will be a short update today on the life of your favorite Sister missionary. :) We are in a really cheap-o Internet cafe (we wont be coming back to this one) because it only gives us a very short time.

So, exciting updates this week are, first off we are going to have a baptism!! :) Pim (the 10 year old girl with the less active parents) is getting baptized and her family is coming back to church again! This is such a huge blessing for their family and I feel so blessed to have seen the transformation. I really love this family with all my heart! Teaching her is always the highlight of my day because we prepare fun lessons for her and she really gets into the games and comparisons we prepare. She understands very easily and is just a joy to be around. I was thinking yesterday that she is someone I will always want to keep in touch with and see what great things she does with her life. She is so smart.

Planning this week was awesome! We have some great plans to make this area rockin'!! I love serving with Sister Amnuaychoke! She is hilarious. OK, so I do this thing every moves. I like to come up with a name for each transfer. The tradition started my second moves when Elder Blaustine was trying to say there are goods and bads, positives and negatives, but accidentally said there are goods and positives. We all laughed at his slip of words and decided to call the moves "The Goods and The Positives" So naturally the next moves, we needed a name too! We named it "Increase Mightily" because we have lots of baptisms (5 in 5 weeks). When I moved to Pakkret in the 6 elder, 2 sister district, the elders didn't get into the naming of the moves like my district had before in Korat, so just between Sister Nielsen and I, we named the moves "Drive through it, Strive through it, Thrive through it" which was a quote from her mom to help her through her homesickness. And we did just that! It was a great moves. So this moves (it is a new moves because I have a new companion) I was trying to think of a good name that will characterize this area, and yesterday I came up with the perfect name:

SO Aroy!

Aroy in Thai means delicious, as in delicious food and is something that Sister Amnuaychoke says a lot. :) So after having Sister Nielsen who wasn't a fan of Thai food, I was ready to eat Thai food again! So I made a list of all the Thai food I wanted to try out in this Thai travel book in English. So I asked her what everything was and literally every dish I told her about she would say, very exciting, "Oh man, that one is SO aroy!" I loved her passion and love for Thai food. Since she lived in Hong Kong for the past 10 years, Thai food reminds her of her childhood and so it is very special to her.

So like all of the names I pick for my new areas, I want it to also be centered on the work. I think of feasting on the words of Christ and how food that is so delicious can make you so happy, like it does for Sister Amnuaychoke, but once you have had good food you don't just stop eating because you have already tasted it. We feed our bodies everyday multiple times a day, and we should be feeding our souls as well with the good word of God. Our focus this moves is on the Book of Mormon and we have had some awesome lessons with members and less actives about the importance of the Book of Mormon and how it blesses our lives. So when I think of how the Book of Mormon has played a role in my life personally, like Sister Amnuaychoke remembering her childhood memories through Thai food, I can say "Oh man, those words are SO aroy!"

I love you all, I am so happy to be here and working hard for the Lord. You are all in my prayers.

Love,
Melissa

Happy Birthday to Tia and Kyle!!