Departure day

Don't know how many are still following our blog… But today we are taking off to go back home to California. I think at the airport I will have time for a longer blog post, but wanted to let everybody know. We will miss our Thailand friends and our California crew! But we are excited to see family and friends :)

{ lizette }

Pattaya Pioneer meeting

So I was gonna post some pics and highlights of our day at annual pioneer meeting here  in Pattaya {also our last wknd here :( } but saw Julie beat me to it and wrote a really nice and encouraging post:) so follow the link and check it out :

http://allabahtthailand.blogspot.com/2014/01/this-and-thatby-juli.html?m=1

{lizette}

My two cents-by Rafa

I guess its my turn to write something...so here it goes(please take into consideration who is writing this, as there will be a significant contrast between this post and the ones that have preceeded it(less descriptive i guess haha)).

So thailand...you know i think there are two major things ive been able to take from this trip. Not that i didnt know or feel them before but they have hit very deep. First of all, being here in a congregation  with so many cultures and languages working together to bring glory to Jehovahs name, there can be no doubt this truly is his organization. Not that there was any before, but you really get to see how his spirit flows in places like this. Why? Well let me show you an example. Two hours from Pattaya you find the capitol of Thailand, and one of the largest cities on earth, Bangkok. These past few weeks it has been all over the news because of the hundreds of thousands people that are protesting and the riots against the prime minister. When we visited we passed some goverment buildings and barricades backed by large groups of police in case anything went out of hand. It was calm then. Now several people have died and parliament has been dissolved. Even after the calls for peace and unity from the revered King of Thailand, things are only getting worse in Bangkok, it is a very difficult time in this country and its sad there is so much division within its people. And yet, when you visit our congregation, you see Thai, Russian, Canadian, Korean, American, Austrian, Australian, Swiss, English, Irish, etc. all working together hand in hand for a greater purpose. We might not be able to comunicate with each other(a few times weve gone to service with brothers were all we would do is point at this or that because it was our only way to communicate). But we try, and we are bound together by a bond that no single culture or nationality will ever enjoy as a whole. Only Jehovahs spirit can accomplish that.

The second thing ive been grateful to experience is the need for the truth here. Sometimes its easy to get a little discouraged, back home(spanish) we're used to having actual conversations in the ministry, our lack of any sort of fluency in thai makes it hard to do more than place a tract. Yet, its amazing how when were walking back to our bikes after that mornings service you will see many reading the tracts that were left with them. I dont remember the last time I saw that back home. Last week I went by a store where I had left a tract with a Nepalese man a couple of weeks before. Honestly, i wasnt expecting much. But you cant imagine how suprised I was when he did not only recognize me, but told me he read the whole Truth tract and then each one of his family members went ahead and read it. He said he enjoyed it very much and it answered many of his questions. I was able to place a Bible Teach book and Kit is going to return to start a study since we will be heading home next week. We invited him to the meeting and even though he works 12 hours a day/7 days a week, he said he was going to try and have his brother go with him. Even with customers going in and out of the store he was never distracted from our conversation and when i asked him if he wanted to go see if they needed anything he just looked behind him and said "theyre ok" and continued talking with us. Just that one experience made the whole trip worth it, you never know how many of the seeds we planted Jehovah will make fruitful in the future. Its been a great experience in so many ways, and for anyone thinking of going where the need is great, i promise you wont regret it.

Bankok protests

Pattaya congregation soccer game

Half of that days service group

Even the monks receive our literature

Our Korean brothers with their new bibles

Andaman triangle

If you've been following either of us on Instagram you've seen : This last week we've been MIA from the pattaya service scene because we've been traveling a bit in the south of Thailand.. As in island hopping:-) and let me tell you it is amazingly beautiful! 6 nights/7days of relaxation.... 3 nights in Ao Nang/krabi then 3 nights on Phi phi islands ...

First we took a taxi to the Bangkok airport to catch our first flight Krabi . It's a beautiful province in south of Thailand . Once we arrived we caught a bus to our hotel in the beach town of Ao Nang, which is just north of the busy city of Krabi town. We loved our relaxing hotel (Maleedee bay resort- totally recommend! ) that was settled in near mountains and just a short 10 minute walk to town/beach. Supposedly this is the high season , but in Ao nang it was so nice and didn't feel crowded at all. 

One of my favorite evenings.. 

Our first activity of the day was to relax, eat and check out the town... This area is known for great seafood so we made sure to try as much as we could.. Then prep for one of my favorite parts of this week.... That evening we took A Thai cooking course! Oh boy I knew I'd have fun but wow, it even blew rafs mind on how fun it was. (Note: rafa was offering to "let me go and enjoy the course by myself" .. He thought he could to save himself $ and the "bore" of a class lol..but convinced him to come) we were only 4 students total in the class so it was nice to have more attention from the teacher for our cooking.. the teacher Yok and her husband were soo awesome! They are both from northern Thailand city of Chiang Mai. They sure put together a great course!  We each learned to make 6 dishes .. Rafa and I tried to pick different things so we(mostly I) could try to re-create them at home.. We cooked in 2 sets ..

Rafs picks :                                          Lizette: 

Tom yum (spicy prawn soup)                 Tom kha kai(spicy coconuts chicken soup)

Chicken cashew nut.                             Pad Thai with chicken 

Spring rolls with banana                         Spring rolls with banana 

2nd round :

Spicy cucumber salad.                          Papaya salad 

Panang curry chicken.                          Green curry chicken

Sticky rice with pineapple                     Sticky rice with pineapple 

Wit our teacher Yok ^ 

Well it was all delicious and we didn't think we'd be able to eat the 2nd round.. So we were planning on taking it back to hotel... Well that 2nd round made it home in our bellies.. I think we could rolled out of there by how full we were! We were sent home with a certificate of course completion and a recipe book with pics and ingredients list... Perfect! I really want to try to find the ingredients soon and have a group over before I forget how to cook em!

Railey beach 

The next day we went to Railey beach by longtail boat(totally obsessed with longtail boat pics..so cool to photograph) anyways at that beach the beauty comes from impressive cliffs surrounding the beach.. A wonderful site to see that pics cannot do it justice. 

Some other pics... 

Rafs first lobster 

And best coconuts fried ice cream ((below)

Curry pineapple  crab friedrice in a pineapple ^

Ko Phi Phi Don 

We arrived to the islands by a large water ferry and basically beach bummed the whole time. The island was a bit touristy but the waters and the cool hidden beaches we found made up for it.. 

View from our lobby^

Our hotel was super nice bungalow up in the hill, but the stairs and super steep 10 min walk up and down each way was killer! Lol good thing we loved our bungalow 

View at night ^ 

 

One of the hidden lonely beaches we found ^

One day we went to Ko phi phi Ley on a private longtail boat that we had to ourselves , it's the neighboring island that is day trips only, and there is so much to see there, a gorgeous inlet where we swam, then snorkeled.. I've never seen so many different fish and such gorgeous waters! It totally beats the Bahamas, Mexico, and Belize.... This island was made famous by the movie "the beach" with Leonardo dicaprio ..( I haven't seen it, but must be beautiful shots ...)  I guess it was filmed on the part of the island called Maya Beach, that cost 200 baht (about $7USD to just step on the sand ..) um yeah we weren't about to pay that so we went to a beach about 300 ft away separated by rocks for free! And we had the beach all to ourselves and it wasn't crowded with boats... We scored it was a nice beach!:)

Another day we made the trek up to the Phi phi viewpoint at the very top peak of the island.. Killer stairs and this out of shape girl almost died on way up.. Plus my flip flop and beach attire didn't really suit the hike.. But I had suggested the hike, since I knew it was something rafa would like (definitely not my 1st pick , lol) so I had to make it up... We made it and it was so worth it! 

Rest stop on way up.. Comfy... ? Lol

Raf made a friend just before we left phi phi 

In phuket ^ just ate at their deliciousrestaraunt..   lol.

Ok now that I've totally written a ton.... We are actually at the end of our trip.. Right now we are on a water ferry from phi phi islands to the island of Phuket.. Where will spend the afternoon in her beach then catch our 10 pm flight back to Bangkok... Then taxi(1.5hours ) to pattaya arriving late Sunday night. Then will have one day to get ready to leave ... Because Tuesday at 4am we are catching a bus to Cambodia.. Where will spend a few days in Angkor Wat/ Siem riep...

Till next time...

{lizette}

Samantha's experience in service link!

Hello, 

This last week in service has been great an d we've been having such great success in ministry! So good it makes us sad to return to California next week :( like we've been finding return visits..(I'll let raf post his experience , ..) i found an RV, and then another interested girl who was so excited that we were also Christians , after giving her the meeting invitation she excitedly said she was going to come to the Sunday meeting(which was the next morning ) and bring her friend who was also Christian! We exchanged numbers and emails.. Well Sunday morning came and passed .. She didn't make it.. But I left her in the good care of Julie, so hopefully we can reach her soon..

  Also please check out SAMs post to read about her great experience In service, link :

http://allabahtthailand.blogspot.com/2013/12/kittens-electrc-fences-and-whole-lot.html

Hana apartment adventures

Wanted to share some of our apartment pictures. We really like the apartment, but I think that may be because we have gotten the updated side... As we have not been traumatized by monsters, mosquitoes, and  creepy crawlies  as Julie and Kits side of apartments :/ sorry guys ! :(  Overall the apartment is very simple, but efficient. It would be nice to have a small kitchenette or sink to wash dishes in, but it works. And something Rafa and I were excited about in this apartment was that it has working water and Hot water!! Unlike our apartment in Mexico! Where it only worked like 30/40% of the day.. Lol. There is a huge building being built right next door which makes it super annoying to relax/sleep, because apparently Thailand has no work ordinances and they be making a racket starting at like 6/7am to whatever time they feel like stopping , usually around 6/7pm , and yes that is 7 days a week! Add to that the noisy nights with loud neighbors(not it's not anyone in our group..) but the crying n screaming baby who's parents leave in hallway almost nightly to share they joys of parenting with all of us(good birth control) , to the couple below us who fight n scream every night, and the constant flow of people in n out of the very echo friendly hallway at all hours of the night ... Ahhh the sounds and experiences... Lol.  (Ex: it is currently 1130pm Wednesday night and there is a full concert of some sort either downstairs in the restaurant in front of the building or at a neighbors, it doesn't sound like they plan on stopping anytime soon, and well they can use some practice :/ ,...) 

Ok so I said we liked it but now I sound like I am complaining haha. Besides noise factor we really do like the apartment .... And rent is so inexpensive ! :-) 

Service is still awesome! My backs been acting up and going out so I've had to miss a few days of service which is such a bummer..  But we've been trying to take advantage of doing informal everywhere we go. it's just a great reminder and great satisfaction knowing we r helping spread seeds for Jehovah , and that even though there is a HUGE language barrier , this may be their only chance to hear about Jehovah. So in the few broken Thai words we can get out... we try to informal. Definitely makes us anxious to learn more Thai to be able to communicate more in service! And we admire those who are here serving and visibly progressing in learning the language, we hope one day we can reach more through the language like them :)

 Almost every where we go it seems that there are eyes on us, as we are usually a large group of nice and happy looking tourist(most tourist here to pattaya are pretty rude and are not nice to Thai people n others in general, it's so infuriating!) so when they see us happy n smiling , be it in a big groups or just as a couple, they tend to watch n observe making it perfect opportunity to witness. I was able to invite a group of young teenage age kids from the states and canada who are in an "outreach" program here in pattaya  to our Sunday meeting, and left them with some tracts. I casually started a convo with them n They were curious about why we were in Thailand so it gave the perfect opportunity to witness. Even though their odds of being witnessed to back home is probably better than that for most Thai, and even if they can't make it to meeting it'll be nice that they see Jehovah's people are all over the world :)

 

This picture of the room is a Panoramic pic so it kinda makes room look bigger,.. But it's hotel sized room with one small closet dresser thing that we share between us 2. Then there's a mirror/vanity thing with one little drawer .. And that's all the storage! Living again with so little here reminds me of the fact that I should just have my mom go thru all my junk at home and burn it before we return!  Ok maybe sell n giveaway , will need the profits for the return trip!  Haha. 

Taking a service break  one hot morning ^ 

^^ Juli, Maria, me and my homegirl Kenzie ^

Oh and a few nights ago we had a super last minute get together in our apartment/room , here is a pic below .. we had fun:) 

{lizette}

**Please remember to check out the group blog at: 

http://allabahtthailand.blogspot.com

**Also if you would like to comment but are having trouble.. Post comment as "Anonymous" , and include you name(first and last) in comment portion, so we know who u are :)