Transfers to Bang Kapi!!!....Wait.. No Transfers

Sister Noon's baptism !! Isn't she just the cutest?! 

March 18, 2020

Just out here livin' it up in Udorn.... Oh wait... Our apartment is Udorn!! It's been so fun though. this week à lot has happened!!

1. Hit my 6 month mark!! So crazy that it has gone my so fast! And sister jensen suprised me with all my favourite chocolate and ice cream! And we ordered a dairy queen ice cream cake to celebrate my 6 months and sister jensens 1 year! 

Love sister jensen

2. we only went à little bit crazy !

Again sister jensen and I the dream team

Jammie time!

Iconic duo 

Sister jensen is the cutest companion!

3. We made a singing video (sister jensen and I both hate singing so we don't really know why we did it) and it got so many views and we were able to talk to so many people from it!! So amazing

4. Sister Noon got baptized! It seemed like everything was against her but she has overcome everything and changed her entire life to follow Christ so it all worked out. We ended up having to fill up the font with buckets of water bc we were running out of time. It was perfectly imperfect! And she is so happy now and ahhh it was the best ever. I am so proud of her (I will write her conversion story in another email for those who want to read it) 

Sister noons baptism!! Sister Wan is soooo cute she's the one in the front who is like 4ft tall!!( mom wants to know where the social distancing is!!!) 

Sister Noon!

5. We got transfer calls last night and I was supposed to be moving to Bang Kapi! We were a little sad bc I love sister jensen so much and we are so tight but I was excited for the new adventure even in the quarantine aha. As I was packing we got a message saying transfers were postponed!! We jumped up and down bc we were so excited. This iconic duo isn't broken up quite yet  God really does answer prayers haha. Anyway I put everything back in like a minute and now it's back to business as usual!

when they thought it was their last day together

6. We also that night found a massive cockroach in our apartment and proceeded to spend the next hour and a half trying to get it. We went to bed veryyy late yesterday night oh myyy. 

Finally caught the cockroach ewwwww

7. We are also indefinitely quarantined... We will hit our month mark on Saturday!!! So wild. We've been able to still see a lot of miracles though and we really know God's work is not stopping.

Quarantine be like (we tried to separate ourselves for like 5 min but it didn't work lol)

I hope this time will help turn all of us to Christ. To the source of real joy and peace. Sometimes that's all we have, and I promise it's enough. The love of our Heavenly Parents and Brother Jesus Christ can carry us through anything.

I love you all and sorry this was a bit of a weird email today! It's been a bit of a weird day too!

Love, 

ซิสเตอร์​ เค็มเม็น

 

2nd Coronaversary!

Love my คู้

That's right we hit the 2 week mark!! With the news that they are extending it a week.... Yay! In all honesty it hasn't been horrible, we've had a pretty fun time and we are starting to get the hang of this whole quarantine thing. The first week was by far the hardest, now we are just slowly getting crazier every day, while still seeing miracles and being productive!

Funnies:

Sister jensen and I just have a problem with laughing... At everything.... Things that just really are not even funny... I've even started laughing in my sleep....

After dinner time is the time that just does not need to be remembered. That is our craziest time of day, weird things happen idek. 

Corona quarantine be like...

Sometimes we really feel like this

We tried peel off facemasks for the first time and it caused a lot of pain lol... Don't know if it was worth it

We've started scaring each other somehow in our tiny little apartment and it's really fun. I've gotten sister jensen so good 3 times.

Random tidbits:

The elders in ubon made a parody of the office called the apartment and it is the best thing ever. We've watched it 3 times.

We ate some really good food again this week

This is Thailand lol, idk why Thai people buy them but that's in the grocery store 

Our dance is coming along really really well 

We have come up with a theory called concentrated craziness that keeps the crazy at bay until at least after dinner! Every hour we have an alarm set with an exercise and we just go nuts doing that exercise for 2 minutes. It has helped us focus so so much. That's been our biggest problem so far is focusing long enough to get things done and be productive! So we are glad we have found this tactic.

It rained and poured for my first time in Thailand and we just stood on the balcony during the storm and had the deepest chat ever. It was sweet 

Most chill district council ever

First skirt ripped by the bike

The work:

We have really seen everyone come together these past two weeks to help the work move forward. We are learning how to work more efficiently and the things we are learning here will be soooo useful once we get out. By doing video calls we save so much time and are able to reach out to so many more people!! It's been awesome to get to know the members more and see how much more they are helping us teach and love the people that are learning. Our miracle board is on the second page now so nothing is stopping us!!

Spiritual Thought:

Everyone has a place. Everyone has talents to bring to the table and when we all work together we really do see miracles happen. God has promised everyone spiritual gifts that can be used to help others around us. God really is a God of love. Everything He does is to help us grow, in all areas but especially love for Him, and Love for our brothers and sisters. So I challenge you this week to pray about and find one gift or talent that you have and pray how to use and develop it in order to help others around you!

You are all so amazing and I love you all!

Love, 

Sister Clement

😊🙄🤣😁😑😒😝🤔😢😂-my emotions this week

March 2, 2020

CHURCHHHH

What a week!! So many emotions were felt, miracles were seen, talents were developed!

Random tidbits:

First my trip to Bangkok was WILD! they would let us get on our flight there, so we had to scramble to still make it there for 5:30am the next day. Our tuk tuk driver drove as fast as possible, faster than other cars on the road to get us to the bus station we had 15 minutes to spare and got a bus that would get us there on time! It was also a bus that looked like a plane on the inside so pretty much the same as flying! Except 9 hrs instead of 1 but what can ya do! I also didn't sleep bc I had a guy that took up half of my seat too sitting next to me lol. We got there on Time, and my visa stuff was done at 9 but sister phetsayam wasn't done until 30 min until our flight home! We sprinted out of the visa office at 14:15 and got a taxi and then ended up sprinting out of the taxi on the highway to the airport haha, it was crazy but we made our flight on time!!

The sisters made us a really nice meal and surprised us when we got home from Bangkok after not sleeping for so long! They are so cute!

We have made some DELICIOUS food this week. We go ham for meals now bc we have so much time and so much food in our house. Usually when you open our fridge you see some water in a jug and that's about it but ohhh how the times have changed!! 

panang curry

Developing my talents left and right 

Our sanctuary, we are so lucky it's on our floor and that pool is so cold so no one is ever out there

The weekly haul aha. Oh yeah we bought a blender!! Best decision ever

We found out only 4 days into the quarantine that every missionary who would have gone home before may 31st was going home early, all the senior missionaries went home too, and a couple people got reassigned!! We heard the news and they were all home within a matter of 2 days.... We were shook. 

Eating ice cream after the news that so many people were going home. (sister jensen was literally shoving spoonfuls in her mouth to try and cope ) 

Sometimes we are doing serious things and then one of us starts laughing and we can't stop laughing for the next like 30 min... We aren't going crazy at all!! 

Our music video that no one will see is coming along slowly but surely. We plan a bit of it every night haha!! 

We tried durian popsicles.... Would not recommend, they were the most disgusting things I've ever tasted in my life... No joke, and I've eaten rat and maggots my friends. (mom's note- description of Durian - “its odor is best described as… turpentine and onions, garnished with a gym sock. It can be smelled from yards away.” )

the dreaded fruit Durian:(

The work:

We can now video call anyone! Friends or family anytime of the week if they have questions or want to learn more about what we teach here. 

Church was the highlight of the week! We felt like we were in thailand again and we took 10 min to ride to church instead of the usual 5 in order to soak it all in! A member gave us donuts from dunkin donuts for HER birthday... Gotta love Thai people! 

We experienced so many miracles this week. One of the people we are teaching has progressed more this week that we've been in our apartments than she has in the 4 months I've been here! Seeing her life change because of her love for God and for the scriptures has been amazing! The members are also helping us soo much too. We love them a lot!

Watching the missionary broadcast from the comfort of our own home!! 

Spiritual Thought:

God loves and knows each and everyone of his children. No matter what is going on in the world he always provides a way for us to feel at peace, to come closer to him, and to feel of his love. His work never stops, he just loves us way too much!! If you want to learn more or have any questions about why I postponed university, left my friends and family, learned Thai and worked hard all of my teenage years to pay for this mission (I'm not payed, it is completely volunteer), all to come to Thailand to share a message about Jesus Christ with people, let me know, and we can chat about it 

This week our emotions have been completely all over the place. It's hard to be in your apartment for this long trying to stay productive. We really are trying our best to fill our days with meaningfull and fun activities that still help the work progress here in Thailand! I chose to come and serve my Father in Heaven and this is just part of it! I will do whatever his will is no matter what that means. Hopefully I will have a little more information next week about what is going to happen to us :) please keep us and the people of southeast Asia in your prayers, we need all the help we can get!!

I love you all :)

Sister Clement

chatting with my mom.

Mom's note: a few hours after sending me this email, she messaged saying that Corona is now in Udorn, where she is living.   Precautions are a good idea!

21°C weather all day and night for at least 2 weeks!!!

Stocking up on supplies! 

February 24, 2020

Hey this week has been full of many wild events!

Quarantine info:

I'm sure most of you are aware of our inability to leave the house at this time for at least two weeks, but that won't stop the work!!

Corona won't get us down

Some of you may be wondering that the heck we are going to do with not being able to watch tv or read books, or scroll mindlessly through social media! Well Sister jensen and I are déterminéd to make it productive so it's going to be awesome... Hard, but awesome.

We have a lot of things planned to keep the work moving! We will still teach our people through video call :) if they don't have a smart phone then we are getting a member to go over there and call us in! It's going to be different but I'm excited.

We are also going to take this chance to get to know our members here! Thai people LOVE talking on the phone so this is a perfect opportunity ;) we are super excited to learn about their conversion stories and see the amazing things they will do to help further the work!

We will also really pump up social media, Thai people are also addicted to Facebook so Woah look!! ANOTHER OPPORTUNITY!

Making our video!! 

We also have a miracle board as of 1 day ago to help keep us motivated and we really do plan on seeing just as many or more miracles in this time!! We already have 3 miracles up there so things are pretty great.

Also since sister jensen and love to have fun, we also have so many fun things planned that consist of, taking a lot of exercise breaks (we are going to Get ripped just saying), dance parties (to appropriate music ofc) (also my favourite one on the list), learning to cook some good food, getting to know each other maybe a little too well, practicing our singing (that'll need a lot of practicing so it's perfect!!). I have the perfect companion for this rn we already love each other so much and are besties!

Sister jensen already going crazy, like look at that outfit

Random air guys in our apartment, it was so weird to have them here

All this being said though it is going to be super hard. I acknowledge that... We are both really outgoing people who love to talk to other people so this is going to be hard, and it will get boring, and we will go a little crazy, but NOTHING will stop us from doing the best that we can in this moment! We are called as full time missionaries of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints whether we are inside the house or not. We will not stop sharing the very thing that brought us here...Our love for God and for all of his children. Now it's just time to take it to the streets of social media instead of the streets of Thailand  thank goodness for technology amiright

A girl we are teaching made us food and came to church for the first time on her own!!! 

That's really all I'm going to say today, this past week we saw a lot of miracles, people coming together, and had a lot of fun! We had zone conference on the last day before the quarantine and it was soooooo good. President Hammond is awesome! 

I love you all so much!! We need all the prayers we can get right now over here as it's going to be a really trying time :) even if you've never prayed before don't let that stop you!! God hears everyone :)) 

Love you, 

Sister clement 

OH yeah and I also have to fly to Bangkok tonight to do my visa so it'll be great to get out of the house! 

Posed picture for my visa application (I need one of me teaching English) 

(mom's note: Rachael had to fly to Bangkok yesterday for one day to renew her VISA.  Can't say I'm excited about her being on a plane but I'm trusting that all will be well as she does what she needs to do.  It will be a minimum of 2 weeks for the quarantine.  If it is longer than that, they could be reassigned to different missions.  That will break their heart but they know it will be for the best.  They are only allowed to leave their apartments to go to church for an hour on Sundays, to get needed supplies and to exercise.  They are not allowed to talk to anyone in the street, to other missionaries, no group meetings.  This is going to be a challenging but necessary course of action to keep them safe.  They are starting out with a positive attitude and want to serve the best they can no matter the circumstance.  I am grateful that she is being looked after by inspired leaders and we continue to pray for the safety of all)

BYU bound 😎

Okay WHAT A WEEK!! So so much happened in such a short time, the mission is going by way too fast! First off, I LOVE my companion. Doing missionary work with a best friend is the best thing ever!

Funnies:

I learned a very valuable lesson this week... Never eat yogurt in a tuk tuk. Made that mistake once, will never make it again. 

we got invited to an appointment with a member, turns out it was in a school and so all the kids were shook when 2 white girls came and sat down at the lunch table and started eating food. This member goes there to eat all the time bc it's only 20 baht lol but it was so uncomfortable  so many people were taking pictures and video

There is this one 19 year old boy in our branch and elder Gregory told him he looked like a rapper and he hasn't stopped rapping since. English class was an interesting experience with that phase 

P-DAY:

Look at the super sketchy boardwalk on the side of a cliff. It was so wobbly too, and the person said that a lot of people have fallen through so it was a tad scary 

Random tidbits:

I got into BYU!!! We were so excited and we are going to eat shabushi tomorrow to celebrate! (it's this shabu and sushi buffet sOoo good) - (Mom's note: BYU = Brigham Young University)

Got into BYU !!! (thanks to the person that gave me that shirt ;)) 

We went to teach a really cute grandpa who can't really walk and there were 5 other guys there half of whom were drunk and they were so weird with us. We still had a super good lesson but everytime we'd say Christ's name they'd just start yelling it and say they know him. Then these two young boys wanted to come and take a picture with both of us on either side of their arm we were like yeah no haha. Such a weird situation and a little scary tbh. We had a member with us so it was chill tho

That same grandpa, พ่อสักดา​ came to church on Sunday for the first time and climbed all the stairs by himself even though half of his body doesn't work! It was amazing and he loved church too :)) he's the cutest human ever.

Valentine's dayyyy!!! We made Caramel and chocolate pancakes and it was so good. And then the super cute girls that we are teaching gave us little gifts and we did gifts for them too! It was so fun. Plus it was sports night that night so it was just such a good day.

5:30am pancakes! (oh yeah we changed our schedule as a district this week to get out earlier so that xo sister of waking up at 5:30 every morning instead of 6:30...sooo rough)

Our super cute friends with our Valentine's day gifts

Valentines day lunch :)with mango sticky rice for dessert 

Selfie with one of the members! (she makes AMAZING food

At one point we were walking on the side of this highway and it was kind of sketch and I'm sure everyone was so shocked to see two Falangs in the middle of nowhere walking along the highway. These two girls ran out of their work and were like, "where are you going?!" they were so worried for us aha and turns out they are interested in learning about Jesus Christ so it was such a win!!

A random walking pic 

Poor sister jensens new skirt, we got matching skirts, it got stuck in her bike so we had to cut it out :( she didn't even wear it for 10 seconds 

Matching skirts!! (we are going to wear this same outfit one Sunday, do our hair the same, and switch nametags and see if the members can tell us apart haha. They all say the only know I have the straight hair and sister jensen has the curly hair lol

The work:

Honestly we are working so so hard and having so much fun everyday. I am so dead at the end of everyday but feel so fulfilled!!we have found so many new people who are dedicated to learning and people that God really has prepared for us. It has been AMAZING. I seriously love being a missionary. It is the best thing ever. Seeing people have hope and really having more light in their lives and finding true joy makes every hard wake up, every sore muscle, every cancelled appointment, the emotional stress and days where I am just so exhausted SO WORTH IT!! We really are just here to love people.

Spiritual thought:

We taught a lot about heavenly father this week because a lot of our people are new and it was so simple and just such powerful truths. No matter who you are, where you've been, where you're going, if you believe or not, God still loves you so much and KNOWS you. He wants every single one of his children to come back home, to live with him forever, and with their families forever. He is the perfect father. The one who will always listen to our hardships, our good times, the things we need, and everything in between when we pray to him. He understands, and he has amazing things in store for each one of you :))

I love you all!!

Sister เค็ม