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:-)