Sister Hammon: Week 50 - Conference Conference Conference

This week has been crazy...we spent 3 days out of our area. That's right, add 8 more hours to my bus ride total this transfer, because we had a giant stake conference in Roiet (big city in the Esan) as well as a combined zone conference the following day! Elder Funk (Asia Area Presidency) came and so did President and Sister Johnson so it was a great few days!

CONFERENCES

Honestly it was the weirdest weekend of my mission, we did almost no work, and I hated it haha. We were stranded at hotels or the church and it was super weird. I really realized how much I love being a normal missionary...yeah meetings are fun and seeing old missionaries is fun, but it is so much better to just be in the field teaching and visiting members and being able to make yourself productive!

Saturday we got there, had the Priesthood meeting, then the adult session that night. Went to bed and bright and early we had to get there to practice for the Sisaket Choir! It was a HUGE conference, by car if you drive across our stake it would take about 9 hours, and we had about 300 members come from all over the Esan! It was incredible to see the faith of these members, taking off work and paying for a hotel just so they could hear from a member of the Seventy! (Sister Fone, her son AND Deewtor made the 4 hour trip and came too! All recent converts!) Then Sunday night we had interviews with President and the Monday we had our zone conference! Crazy, crazy weekend, but it was definitely a spiritual boost for sure!

One thing that really stood out to me was something President taught about faith. He explained that 'faith to find' wasn't just going out inviting one day with 100% confidence that you would find a new investigator, but instead it was being willing to DO the things suggested in Preach My Gospel. That really hit me, when we show God what we are willing to do, he makes so much more of us/our works than we can, but only if we show the faith first! I know this is true and pray for the ability to do this more in my life every single day, and challenge you all to do it too!

LONG SKIRTS

Hahaha wearing long skirts in 100 degree weather/rainstorms is the definition of an ADVENTURE! The very first day Sister Curtis was wearing her long skirt and I was biking ahead of her when I heard a faint cry, "Sister Hammon!" I looked back to find her on the side of the road with her skirt completely caught in her bike chain...so she is down 1 long skirt! She almost got hit by a car but she's good. I couldn't stop laughing because she has SO MANY biking accidents hahaa. She told me that I am, and I quote, an "Olympic biker" and I need to teach her my ways, but honestly she just keeps having all these random, hilarious, accidents...hahaha pray for her biking ability to improve;)

I love being a missionary. So much. There is NOTHING in the world like this and I am so blessed to be a part of this incredible work. Time keeps going by faster and faster but I am trying my best to slow it down. I know this is God's work. I know that He sent me to Thailand for a reason and each day it becomes more and more evident that this is where I am supposed to go. I love these members more than anything and consider myself blessed to be apart of the ward in Sisaket:) BEST AREA IN THE MISSION.

Much much love,

Sister Hammon

Let’s just say, rainy season is back!

When your house money request finally comes in…15,000 baht later ($440)

So it was June 3rd (my birthday) and we were all leaving the meeting around 8:20 when the elders in my zone found out I hadn’t had a cake yet…so they piled into a car and raced to the mall to buy me cake before 9. We were already at the hotel when we heard a knock and boom, free cake! BEST. BIRTHDAY. EVER.

This is the Sisaket choir…our special musical number for stake conference

in front of a Seventy was “Book of Mormon Stories”…not kidding.

If you look close you will see 3 elders on 1 bike

(Photo taken by 6 sisters in 1 tuk tuk)

Picture of Skippy, the majestic horse outside our church

[From May 24 email: "There is this random horse that has taken up residence right outside our church. We named it Skippers and every time I turn town the church's street I freak out. 'Wow a horse' Then I remember it's normal now."]