Time is flying here in northern Thailand. Lizzy and I have already been here for ten days. As we have become more familiar with the people, the food, and the culture, it is starting to feel a bit like home. The past week has been filled with volunteer work at local elementary schools. We have taught English, restored several playgrounds, and began building a large sink.

Building the Sink

One of the highlights of my week was starting to build a sink for an elementary school. Because the school is set up oustide, the kids get fairly dirty throughout the day. The sink will be a great resource for them to be able to wash before meals.

With the funds provided by you and other donors, we purchased about a hundred large bricks, cement, sand, and tile. A local contractor showed us how to lay down the bricks to make a straight and sturdy wall. By the end of the day, the other HELP volunteers and I were building the wall independently. It felt good to get our hands dirty and work hard.

 After we laid the wall down, a fellow volunteer, SuJung, and I, decided to take a break and play a game. The point of the game is to push each other's hands, trying to knock the other person over while staying upright yourself. We failed, however, to see the problem of playing so close to our newly laid wall...

Luckily, we were able to patch up the error. We then laid sand in the wall, which will eventually act to stabilize the sink. Next week, after everything has hardened, we will work on the plumbing, cement the outside, and finish it off with a layer of tiles.

Weekend Trip to Chaingrai


As HELP volunteers, we typically work Monday through Friday, getting the weekends off. This weekend, we decided to take a two hour van ride to Chaingrai. On Saturday, we visited the Princess Mother's summer villa where we took a tour of the royal villa, walked in her HUGE garden of flowers, and learned more about the history of the royal family. To say that the king, and other members of the royal family, are loved by the people would be an understatement. His picture is everywhere. On bridges, billboards, the money, in people homes, in restaurants, and even in the Internet cafe where I am writing this blog.





The current king took over the throne in his twenties and has ruled for over 70 years. He, and other members of his family, have done so much good and have become strong advocates for the people of Thailand.

We had to wear special pants to cover our shorts in order to enter the royal villa. As you can see from the picture, I was struggling slightly with the pants at first, but eventually got them figured out and was able to tour the Villa with the rest of the group.






We woke up early Sunday morning and drove near the top of the tallest mountain peak on the Thailand-Laos border. We then hiked the rest of the way where we watched the beautiful sunrise.

It was an incredible experience to be above the clouds and look down at the incredibly green landscape.
We took a picture at the sign that marks the peak as the tallest in the region. If you look over my left shoulder, you will see an elderly man's face in between the girls in the red and grey. We don't know who he is, and didn't know he was in the picture. The ULTIMATE photo bomb in my opinon.

We were able to attend the Chaingrai branch on Sunday morning. I was surprised to see how many people--about 50--were at church. It was great to participate in the services. The church to the left is not the LDS branch meeting house. It is a Buddhist temple (nicknamed "the White Temple") that we visited in the afternoon. It is spectacularly weird. There are hundreds of statues of skulls and other demonic pictures on the outside. Inside, the gist of the artwork is a mural depecting everything from Michael Jackson to Spiderman, Edward Scissorhands, and Kundfoo Panda. It is difficult to convey how bizzare it was. Nat, our Thai volunteer, doesn't like the temple because he feels it is set up only for tourists and is disresespectful to Buddhism tradition.

Nutella and the Mountain

On a side note, Lizzy and I have been surprised how delicious Thai food is. We both want to try to stay in shape. Most of the girls here, including Lizzy, are addicted to Nutella (a chocolate hazelnut cream) and eat it with anything and everything.




I made a deal with Lizzy that if she wouldn't eat Nutella for the rest of the trip, I would run to the top a mountain to a local Buddhist temple (pictured right) every morning. It is only about a mile away, but the climb is fairly steep. We are six days into the bet, and neither of us have broken yet.



Looking Forward

We are very excited for some projects coming up this week. Tomorrow, we are going to spend all day teaching English classes (Lizzy, at an elementary schools, and me, at a Monk school). Later in the week, we are going to finish building our sink and will help rebuild an old lady's home that recently burnt down. I have also set up a meeting with a local NGO that works primarily with mental health awareness, which I am excited about.

Thank you again for all your support! We wouldn't be here without you.