Church and Phitsanulok

Hi family! On Saturday we explored Phichit a little more. We went to the grocery store and the mall. The Thai are very into bras. At both the grocery store and the mall, they had huge bra sections with rows and rows of bras. At the store, a woman was even trying one on right in the middle of the store! At the mall, we also saw the movie theatre with all Thai movies and we're thinking of going to see one sometime. I bought a strawberry Fanta that actually tasted like a carbonated cherry cough syrup. Later that day, we walked to the train station. The train station was in the poor part of town and it was the first time I had seen true poverty with crumbling houses and street dogs running around everywhere. The train station was also where we saw a group of kids playing soccer in the parking lot. We challenged them to a game. It was so funny, after the train came in, a huge group of people gathered around to watch. I played horribly as usual, but it was a lot of fun. Those boys beat us 3-2. Afterward, we took a group picture that is on Facebook. It was so cute that the kids were so excited to see us. We played with the kids afterward. The little girls made us paper crafts with their names on it. That craft will probably be one of the best gifts I get in Thailand. We decided we are going to buy them a new soccer ball when we go back. Now I'm going to stop here before this turns into a cheesy Hallmark Hall of Fame movie. On Sunday, we took the train to Phitsanulok to church. Phitsanulok is about 45 min north of Phichit. We took a tuk tuk to the church. It was so interesting to see the an LDS church in Thailand. The ward members were very nice. A woman held my hand and told me I was pretty and the woman who sat next to me during sacrament gave me candy. We also talked with the missionaries who were white boys from Utah. It was funny because a girl in my group actually knew one of the elders from middle school. We wore headsets and listened to them translate for us. The talks were from recent converts. It was so nice to talk about Jesus and charity in church as opposed to just the evils of gay marriage and modesty that the Utah church is preoccupied with. After sacrament, a few of us walked around Phitsanulok a bit. It is a bigger city than Phichit and actually has tourists because it is close to ancient ruins. It was very hot and sunny. It got freaky when a truck started following us and the man wanted to give us a ride. We said no and bolted before we got kidnapped into a sex trafficking ring! We went to a fancy restaurant for lunch. I got pad thai. The noodles were in an egg shell that I had to cut apart to eat the noodles. A girl in my group got American rice that ended up being white rice covered in ketchup with a drumstick on the side. That is not how Americans eat rice! When a girl used to the bathroom she also found what she was pretty sure was a brothel upstairs!