Greetings from Prateed Thay!

Family and Friends!!

Thailand is simply incredible!!! Oh my goodness... so much to say! Let's see if I can get it all out! OK, so first the plane ride. It honestly wasn't that bad! Sure it was long, but the airline we flew on was really nice! (the sleeping pill didn't hurt either :) The strangest thing was leaving SLC at 9 at night, traveling all night and all day then getting to Thailand at 10 in the morning when it felt like we should be going to sleep. So, we met Prataan (president) Smith and Sister Smith and we were all just so excited, despite the lack of sleep. The sisters got to ride with Prataan and the elders went with the APs in the mission vans. So, here I am, half way around the world, driving on the wrong side of the road in this amazing foforeignountry!!! I loved it. Bangkok is HUGE... its a big city with lots of high rise buildings and they just go on forever. It would be like looking at the skyline of Sacramento all over the Sacramento region... that big. Traffic is insane here!! The lines on the roads are more like suggestions, people are always in the shoulders and most people drive motorcycles, so those are everywhere. So we get to Prataans, and oh man is the mission home nice!! You saw the picture... We ate lunch, we to the Mission office, took pictures (which were surprisingly not too bad given that I had just got off of a 20 hour flight and had little sleep) He interviewed all of us, we had an AMAZING Thai dinner and by 7 we were out! Everyone was SOO tired, we looked like zombies at dinner.

SO Thursday was moves meeting and it was so fun because the whole mission came. We sang Called To Serve in Thai and they sang it so fast none of us greenies could keep up!! All the greenies sat on the front row and the new trainers sat behind us, but no one knew who was training who. Sister Lo was there and I was really hoping she would train me, but she is training Sister Akagi, which I think is really good. Sister Lo will be perfect for her. OK so the big moment... my trainer is Sister Bradfield from Sandy UT and we are serving in a town called Korat which is AMAZING!! I absolutely love it here... it is seriously the best place to start out. It is 3 hours northeast of Bangkok, so it is smaller, but it is definitely a bigger town. There is a mall and everything. People still drive crazy here, but its not nearly as crazy as Bangkok.

Alright, so Korat... oh man, I just love it. First of all- THE PEOPLE!! they are so nice and so amazing! The members are so solid and the work is going great right now. We have 7 people who just got baptized in the past few months, 2 just past Sunday, and lots of investigators, some who are really progressing. The members help us out a ton and we teach about 2 lessons with a member every day, about. We teach investigators, less actives and members and everyone is so happy to have us in their home. We are so busy teaching all the time we barely have time to find new people!! We also have gotten 4 referals, just this week!! SO yea... this is the perfect area to greenie in. Thai people are SOO nice. They LOVE giving complements. I swear I have never looked so bad in my life (sweating, no make up, hair not done) and still everyone here says I am beautiful. I will say one thing in Thai and everyone says I am gang (that means skillful) I am actually pretty surprised at how much I understand. Sometimes I am completely lost, but a lot of times I understand. I always help with the teaching. My sentences aren't always right and I know I don't say all the words right, but people understand me!! And Sister Bradfield always clarifys when I am trying to say something I don't know the words for. One hard thing is after I say something, the people usually start talking about how good my Thai is for just being here a few days and dont really focus on what I am saying... So it is nice and makes me feel good that they are praising me, but I'm looking forward to not being so new that they have to say that everytime. I have learned SOO much this past week. I love it.

OK, the culture. WOW I love the Thai way of life. Especially in Korat. Everything is Sabaai (litterally means fine but its more like, laid back, chill, go with the flow kind of fine) I'm not gonna lie, their driving freaked me out at first just because its like there are no traffic laws, everyone drives where ever, cars will stop on the side of the street and it just seemed really chaotic... but now that I've been here a while, I realize it so sabaai... everyone's just trying to get to their destination and if someone stops in front of them, you just go around them! There is no such thing as road rage. The horn is only used to let someone know you are there, never to get angry at someone for being in the way. If someone is stall and you can't get around them... you just wait. People are so patient here. SO we ride our bikes everywhere, even on the freeway!! and across intersections. At first I was way stressed out to go through intersections (there are rarely lights, so you just go when you can) but pretty quick I just realized that I don't need to worry, its just sabaai... you go when you can, and if you're blocking someone, they will just go around you. It's awesome. I love riding my bike. My second day on the bike I did have a skirt get caught in my tire, which was funny. But it's all good, it wasn't very good material anyways. I am going shopping today for more skirts. I bought a shirt last night. It cost $6!! It's so cute!!

OK well... the work is just going amazing. I LOVE sharing the gospel. I never thought it could be so fun. People are very receptive to it here. They believe that all religion is good and teaches people to be good, we are really respected. Well next week I will have pictures and talk more about investigators and the work. Time is running out. I miss you all and I love you all!!!!!!!!!!

Love,
Sister Larson