Feb. 26th, 2010
I don’t know what I am going to do when this dream is over. Yesterday when Matt got home from work we threw on our backpacks with everything we would nee for the next couple days and we jumped on the scooter for another adventure. It was a surprise and Matt wouldn’t tell me where we were going. It was so exciting to be on the scooter with our backpacks riding into the night to who knew where. To me it didn’t matter where we were going or what we were going to do – it was going to be fun. Our bike could have broken down, we could have gotten lost – anything but nothing could have disrupted the fun of the adventure.
So we rode into the night and out of the city. Everything grew more rural and more sparse until it was all gone and we were on a winding road in the jungle/forest going up a mountain. The hill tribes were burning the hill sides to make their mushrooms grow better so all around us there was this fiery serpent weaving through the hillside. I don’t know how they kept it all controlled.
As we traveled it got colder but even the chill didn’t touch my high spirits. We would both let out random outbursts – “Yee Hoo!”, “Yaow!”, “Wah Ha!” – to relieve the tension that would build up in our bodies from the cold. Matt also became my human shield from both the wind and the bugs.
Pealing off onto a dirt road and crossing a stream we arrived at our destination. President Prot (and his four dogs) were waiting for us out on their porch.
His wife (Sister Aun) had made us dinner and we all ate there on the bug infested porch :) Ah, the mission memories :) The mosquitoes and gnats would land on my food and get stuck so I would discretely separate them out. The food was good – different and at times questionable but nothing disgusting. I can’t believe how many different plates there were for one meal and Matt said that was normal. There was rice (of course) – home grown rice no less and then there was a chicken and cauliflower dish, a laab (spicy pork dish), a vegetable dish of what I thought was spinach and other stuff, and an empanada looking thing, but the outside was all egg and the inside was pork, cucumbers, and tomatoes. Then there was also cut up guava and “rose apple”. All of this for one meal!!
President Prot and Sister Aun
[At this point my journal entries became a lot of bullet points because I was always too tired to write all the details of everything that we had done that day. Even now it is too overwhelming to try to write all the details of everything that we did so the bullet points will have to so, but hopefully the pictures will help.]
*Will never forget Sister Aun walking with her masheddy in hand to lead us through the rice fields and over to their Jeep that we were going to borrow for the day. It ended up not working, but I didn’t mind a bit because I LOVE THE SCOOTER!
*Everything here is made of cement (walls, floors, stairs and even counters) And the scaffolding for building these cement buildings is just bamboo rods tied together – literally.
*Pulled over at a market - plucked chickens hanging with feet and heads still attached. SO many new smells and sights. Absolutely nothing is familiar.
*Hot Springs – the walk in the garden and soaking our feet
I don’t know what I am going to do when this dream is over. Yesterday when Matt got home from work we threw on our backpacks with everything we would nee for the next couple days and we jumped on the scooter for another adventure. It was a surprise and Matt wouldn’t tell me where we were going. It was so exciting to be on the scooter with our backpacks riding into the night to who knew where. To me it didn’t matter where we were going or what we were going to do – it was going to be fun. Our bike could have broken down, we could have gotten lost – anything but nothing could have disrupted the fun of the adventure.
So we rode into the night and out of the city. Everything grew more rural and more sparse until it was all gone and we were on a winding road in the jungle/forest going up a mountain. The hill tribes were burning the hill sides to make their mushrooms grow better so all around us there was this fiery serpent weaving through the hillside. I don’t know how they kept it all controlled.
As we traveled it got colder but even the chill didn’t touch my high spirits. We would both let out random outbursts – “Yee Hoo!”, “Yaow!”, “Wah Ha!” – to relieve the tension that would build up in our bodies from the cold. Matt also became my human shield from both the wind and the bugs.
Pealing off onto a dirt road and crossing a stream we arrived at our destination. President Prot (and his four dogs) were waiting for us out on their porch.
His wife (Sister Aun) had made us dinner and we all ate there on the bug infested porch :) Ah, the mission memories :) The mosquitoes and gnats would land on my food and get stuck so I would discretely separate them out. The food was good – different and at times questionable but nothing disgusting. I can’t believe how many different plates there were for one meal and Matt said that was normal. There was rice (of course) – home grown rice no less and then there was a chicken and cauliflower dish, a laab (spicy pork dish), a vegetable dish of what I thought was spinach and other stuff, and an empanada looking thing, but the outside was all egg and the inside was pork, cucumbers, and tomatoes. Then there was also cut up guava and “rose apple”. All of this for one meal!!
President Prot and Sister Aun
[At this point my journal entries became a lot of bullet points because I was always too tired to write all the details of everything that we had done that day. Even now it is too overwhelming to try to write all the details of everything that we did so the bullet points will have to so, but hopefully the pictures will help.]
*Will never forget Sister Aun walking with her masheddy in hand to lead us through the rice fields and over to their Jeep that we were going to borrow for the day. It ended up not working, but I didn’t mind a bit because I LOVE THE SCOOTER!
*Everything here is made of cement (walls, floors, stairs and even counters) And the scaffolding for building these cement buildings is just bamboo rods tied together – literally.
*Pulled over at a market - plucked chickens hanging with feet and heads still attached. SO many new smells and sights. Absolutely nothing is familiar.
*Hot Springs – the walk in the garden and soaking our feet
*Pulling over on the side of the road for an unplanned 2 HOUR body massage.
-hearing cars go by and the sounds of the chickens chatting and scratching just outside while the Thai music plays and the Thai massagers chit chat.
-it was just a row of pads on the ground
-there was an incredible warm breeze that would flow through that just called out for laziness
-the bathroom there was just three walls with a curtain, a squatter, and a bucket of water that you dump in afterwards.
*Chickens running around our feet at lunch at the little roadside “restaurant”
*We just cruised around video taping all the odd things from the scooter
*Reality hit – stomach problems sent us back to the house early and we had to call it a day :)
Me (sick and wearing Sister Aun's sweats) and Sister Aun getting the Thai BBQ ready for dinner
-hearing cars go by and the sounds of the chickens chatting and scratching just outside while the Thai music plays and the Thai massagers chit chat.
-it was just a row of pads on the ground
-there was an incredible warm breeze that would flow through that just called out for laziness
-the bathroom there was just three walls with a curtain, a squatter, and a bucket of water that you dump in afterwards.
*Chickens running around our feet at lunch at the little roadside “restaurant”
*We just cruised around video taping all the odd things from the scooter
*Reality hit – stomach problems sent us back to the house early and we had to call it a day :)
Me (sick and wearing Sister Aun's sweats) and Sister Aun getting the Thai BBQ ready for dinnerFeb. 27th, 2010
Yesterday was the 7 year anniversary of my mom’s death . . . How could that be? I tried to tell Sister Aun about it yesterday when she was asking about my mom while we swept dirt with branches and Matt was trying to get the jeep working. I don’t know how much Sister Aun understood though. Sometimes I am amazed at how well I can speak and understand the language and other times everything just seems to be on the tip of my tongue just out of reach. I want to learn Thai so badly and I want to come back here to serve and help the church with Matt. I feel like there is so much we could do. Just last night we sat for 2 hours around the Thai BBQ that Matt had told me so much about and just sat talking with Brother Prot and Sister Aun and we seemed to get such an insight with what is going on with the church here and what their needs are and I immediately want to run to Elder Scott or someone to give them the update straight from the members . . . there is such a need here.
Anyway, yesterday I got to write of our arrival here with the Prots, but I didn’t get to explain the conditions of our stay here. Go to our home videos for the real details – but Brother Prot and his wife are here in a small home on the property of his sister’s. He is here watching her very nice SECOND home here in the mountains. This vacation home of hers is where Matt and I have stayed alone for the past two nights and I am currently sitting out on this extensive porch over looking the valley and rice fields and hills and canals and cows and dogs and chickens. It is all misty and completely unreal. You have never seen anything so beautiful and so utterly peaceful.
Yesterday was the 7 year anniversary of my mom’s death . . . How could that be? I tried to tell Sister Aun about it yesterday when she was asking about my mom while we swept dirt with branches and Matt was trying to get the jeep working. I don’t know how much Sister Aun understood though. Sometimes I am amazed at how well I can speak and understand the language and other times everything just seems to be on the tip of my tongue just out of reach. I want to learn Thai so badly and I want to come back here to serve and help the church with Matt. I feel like there is so much we could do. Just last night we sat for 2 hours around the Thai BBQ that Matt had told me so much about and just sat talking with Brother Prot and Sister Aun and we seemed to get such an insight with what is going on with the church here and what their needs are and I immediately want to run to Elder Scott or someone to give them the update straight from the members . . . there is such a need here.
Anyway, yesterday I got to write of our arrival here with the Prots, but I didn’t get to explain the conditions of our stay here. Go to our home videos for the real details – but Brother Prot and his wife are here in a small home on the property of his sister’s. He is here watching her very nice SECOND home here in the mountains. This vacation home of hers is where Matt and I have stayed alone for the past two nights and I am currently sitting out on this extensive porch over looking the valley and rice fields and hills and canals and cows and dogs and chickens. It is all misty and completely unreal. You have never seen anything so beautiful and so utterly peaceful.
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