Hey!
So I've had some sweet encounters with some of the wild life here in the Eason. I'm no longer in the big city so there are a lot more animals and bugs everywhere. But last week at English class, we found a lizard in the bathroom, I don't know what its called in English but in Thai its called a Dookgae and every Thai person in Thailand are terrified of them! I think they are sweet looking! But apparently they're pretty vicious and if you get bit by it, its impossible to get its jaw open and I guess it hurts really bad. So we had to get this lizard out of the bathroom and we couldn't really chase it out and the only real way to get it out was by grabbing it. Everyone was to afraid to grab it with there bare hands so this 20 year old kid grabbed a pipe and tied a rope to it and made a noose at the end and after a while finally got it around its neck and we were able to take it outside. It looks like it may be dead hanging there but don't worry, we didn't kill it. Then this morning I had an encounter with a huge spider in the bathroom as I was showering. It scared me pretty good! It was pretty cool looking though. I'm just glad I didn't get bit! ha ha, maybe I could have turned into spiderman though...hmm...maybe I should have let it bite me...Well I guess its to late now! Its probably better that way anyways. Well its been fun so far up here! If anyone has any questions for me or anything, you are very welcome to write me!! ;) I love you all!

Steve

Hey Everyone,So I'm in my new area now. I'm in a city called KhonKaen. Its in the Eason which is in the Eastern part of thailand. I finally got out of Bangkok! I get to see what the rest of the country is like. But to get to Khonkaen we had to take a train up here and it took about 9 hours to get here! It was a long ride but it was sweet. I'm way excited to be serving up here. In this area of the country they speak Eason which is really really close to Laotion, sometimes I don't understand what people say but most of the time I can get the message. But Khonkaen is a big college town and it seems like its going to be fun here. The church is pretty nice except only 40 people go everyweek! How crazy is that! My first area had 100, then my second area had 60-70 and now there are only 40 going. There is a lot of work to do here. We don't have very many investigators which is to bad but we can get that up! But my new companions name is Elder Hunsaker. He seems really good! He is from Missouri. So in Khonkaen we ride our bikes everywhere. There are no taxis here like there are in Bangkok so we have to ride everywhere but its sweet! Its good to be outside and ride around, you get to talk to a lot more people that way! Well I don't have to much time right now I'll have to write more next week, I love you all! Steve

Date: Wed, 4 Mar 2009 05:12:55 +0000

So This past Sunday we had 2 more of our investigators baptized! Its the 2 women in the middle. The younger one is a sister of a member and the other one is the mother of a member! The older woman was a golden investigator! We like didn't even have to teacher her much, she already knew it all! She told us before she started learning with us she would always read her daughter's Liahonas and learned pretty much everything from those! It was really easy teaching her. Then we got her soon to be son-in-law to baptized her (he isn't in the picture). Then the other woman was learning with us but started falling away and wouldn't ever meet with us about 3 months ago so we dropped her. Then one day we went to go teach Brother Rud and Sister Tik's house (sister Tik is this woman's sister) and Sister Ma'am (the woman that just got baptized) was there and was sitting in the background listening as we talked about the Plan of Salvation. but it was sweet to seem them both get baptized! We invited her to sit with us but she said no and then started walking around. Then when we got more into the lesson she came over and sat down with us just listening. It was really good because we hadn't seen her in like 2 months. But after we left that day, Sister Tik called us and told us that Sister Ma'am wanted to start learning again! So she then came to church that Sunday and we taught her afterward and talked about baptism and she said she wanted to be baptized still! so we set a date for the day after her birthday and finished teaching her everything and she pulled through and got baptized! It was amazing to see her finally go through with it!
> So tomorrow we have a transfer period and I'm moving areas and getting a new companion. Hopefully I will be going to a cool area and getting out of Bangkok! Ive been in Bangkok for half of my mission and breathing this pollution all day long can't be good for me health...its time to move up country! lol. Well I got to go, I love you all!

Steve