The End

We are home! Thanks for reading our blog and for being awesome. We will see you all soon. The pictures on the blog are just the tip of the iceberg...if you wanna see more, just ask us!

Love, Christina

hmmm...I guess I DO like posing with plants

I'm sure my friends Svetlana, Natasha and Maria would NOT approve:-)

quick story about the funny pic with all of us doing the "peace sign". the one brother who isn't smiling is Enjun, he is from Korea. In absolutely EVERY picture taken of him he is tossing up a "peace" sign and smiling the biggest silliest smile. So, I wanted a picture of all of us doing that and him being the serious one. After we took the photo, he was like "that was so hard. so hard." Not being able to be a goof for the camera was almost too much strain for him:-)

okay, another "quick" story:-) Since being here we have noticed that the Russians, both tourists and the brothers and sisters in the congregation, like to pose for pictures. Not goofy, or ironic or comical pictures. Serious pictures. Its cute, (except when its pasty white tourists in small swimming attire posing in the waves a la "swimsuit edition", then it isn't so cute). Anyway, after the memorial, all the Russian sisters were taking turns posing with the flower arrangements. When they saw us watching them, the made us do it to. Mine and Jake's absolute inability to pose with plant life in a serious way probably frustrated them...so they asked more brothers and sisters to join in the fun:-)

Goodbyes are the WORST!

The last post was about how great our memorial was. It was a bittersweet night for us though because it was our last meeting in Pattaya. We had to say goodbyes. I was a blubbering mess! We have grown so attached to the brothers and sisters here. I am going to post some of their pictures. I wish we could take them all home with us so you all could meet them and love them as much as we do! Getting to know these ones has been such a privilege and we have heard so many cool life stories and amazing experiences. We can tell you more when we get home!

Memorial

Our memorial was so wonderful! We had an excellent turnout. Let me break it down for you... So the english group has between 40-50 publishers and we had 90 people attend the memorial! Several bible students were there along with their families. Our three Ghanian students were there as well. There were also quite a few who attended because they had received an invite from the campaign work. In fact, the day before the memorial we were out doing street work near one of the shopping malls trying to invite foreigners who might speak english. My friend Amy, who is super bold and zealous stopped a guy who ended up being from Alaska. She talked with him a bit and gave him the invite. As they parted she asked, "So are you gonna come tomorrow?" and he said "Sure, why not? I'm not doing anything tomorrow." Well, sure enough, he came!! Afterwards when asked what he thought he mentioned that he had several questions and would like to know more!

The thai congregation also has around 40-50 publishers. They had 124 at their memorial! Their memorial was before ours, so when we arrived they were just getting out. To see the number of interested people, many who came because of the invitation work, walking out of the hall with Watchtowers and other literature in their hands was so encouraging!

The sign language group is quite tiny, only about 10 publishers. They held their memorial at Joe and Fa's home up the street from the hall. They had a whopping 46 in attendance, 22 of whom were deaf! Amazing!

So combined, the attendance this year for Pattaya was 260! Not bad for 90 publishers! It was so great to be a part of this. I've said it before, but there is so much work to be done here in Thailand. Anyone want to 'step on over'???

I am like frower...

Some funny signs I found. I love the liberal use of exclamation points!!!!! These are only a tiny sample of the funny engrish signage here.

Sunday Lunch

After every sunday meeting, the Thai congregation brings food from home and picnics behind the hall. They do this so that they can eat quickly and then head off out in service or to support the Thai sign language meeting at 1pm. They are so generous and hospitable, they always invite several of us from the english group to join in. So, last sunday, we decided to repay them. We had a feast of international food food for all the Thai brothers and sisters. There was potato salad, pasta salad, indian curry, a Japanese tofu dish, scalloped potatoes....the list goes on. It was yum. I made bruscetta with salami and tomatoes. It was a lot of fun.

Oh, and I included a picture of Joe and Fa, they taught our thai class and were absolutely wonderful. They have been in Pattaya for 5 years (i think!) and have helped tremendously in the english group and the thai congregation. They were also instrumental in forming the Thai sign language group. In short, they are just an amazing couple and their love and zeal for Jehovah is a good example for all of us:-)

Toilet Humor

I find the restroom signs here to be quite funny. The restrooms themselves on the other hand, not so funny...

Jake's Artsy Side

Its not really a secret that Jake loves to take pictures. We have more photos of sunsets, bugs, flowers, clouds and the ocean than anyone else I know. I complain about it sometimes...but really, I'm glad he likes to take pictures. Because then we end up with lovely memories like these. Most of these photos were taken from our apartment on the 5th floor. Nice colors, thanks to all the air pollution:-)

Work Day

We spent last Saturday cleaning up the Kingdom Hall and its grounds in preparation of the memorial. It was a huge turnout! We had a lot of fun as you can see. That day a storm was rolling in which made it extra humid. Everyone was so sweaty! Even my knee caps were sweating. I didn't even know that was possible...but I guess it is:-0 Right after the cleaning crew finished and left, the storm hit. Good timing.

Invitation Work

We have been busy these last few weeks getting all the memorial invites out to the territory. The thai congregation ran out of their invites in a week and a half! And they weren't leaving them at not-at-homes either. Even though they ran out, there are still so many territories that didn't even get touched! There is such a need here! In the english group, we had about 300+ names and addresses to go back to. We managed to cover all of them in a few weeks time as well. We are excited to see the turn out this Thursday. I think between the thai congregation and the english group, there were 16 or 17 who signed up to put in 30 hours in March. That is aside from all the regular pioneers and the ones who just increased their time in the ministry. Our service groups were extremely well supported all throughout the month as I'm sure they were around the world.

There's always money in the Banana Stand...

I will miss these...

Friends

Well, we only have a little over a week left here in glorious Thailand. We knew that the time would fly by, but we had no idea it would fly so fast! We have made some great new friends here in Pattaya. I will post a few pictures of our worldwide brotherhood:-)

We have pictures from a bbq we went to hosted by our Russian brothers and sisters. There are two brothers from Korea, both of which have served time in Korean prison for not enrolling in the military. Then there is a group of lovely sisters: Gina, Olga, Amy, Dasha, Ina (with the cool hair:-) and Liza from the U.S., Russia and Germany. Next is a picture of Antonella and Carlos, from Italy. And last but not least, a cool little fam from the Pacific Northwest, the Crismans from WA.

Walking around Bangkok