#makerealconnections

Last day in Chiang Mai! We got some breakfast and went to the post office to send some things home. We thought that we'd send more of our gifts and souvenirs back through shipping, but after trying different boxes and having debates go through our head on what's going to work the best, we took the large bag back to our hostel to pack it up and take with us. We did some laundry which took a while (this was our first time using a dryer since being in Thailand), then we met up with Sarah (Canada) and her mother, Carol for lunch before we caught our flight to Lrabi. We went to a place called 'Lemongrass' and ordered Massaman curry, chicken satay,  and fried banana with fresh made coconut ice cream. Whew... divine! It was so nice to spend time with those two, they are very down to earth and kind. We went to find a taxi to take us to the airport, one wouldn't leave us alone, so we flagged down a less aggressive Tuktuk. We love those tuktuks! On the w...

Elephant Nature Park. Beyond words. Gantana "means golden" (on the left) Dahmaun "means round eye" (on the right)  Wasana "means lucky" These people spend 4,000,000 baht( about $121,200) each elephant to rescue them from logging, tourism, and other forms of animal abuse. An elephant trunk has 150,000 muscles in it! They eat all day pretty much and these people give them real life and their goal is to get them wild again when the time is right. We are so grateful. After a hot shower and rest, we headed to the night Bazaar. We thought the night market was big, but the bazaar was massive. We ate Massaman curry and gyazo. Both were delicious. We also ran into Andrea and Suzanne, which are the ladies we spent the day with with the elephants. Small, big world. We finished souvenir shopping and headed back ...

We are super happy with our hostel. The bed is extremely comfy, the bathroom is so close, everything is super accessible and it's really fun to hear so many accents around. We sometimes hear random farts coming from the others, I think it's mainly the Australian guy. Maybe.,. We got up and had some breakfast. The bread and honey was my favorite. The fruit was moms favorite, mainly pineapple. We got ready and walked to church. It's only a 10-15 minute walk. We are staying so close to where we were last weekend, it's nice to know our way around a bit. Last night when we were walking Sarah to her hostel, we passed the church and realized that her place was right by where we stayed last weekend. It was great to be able to partake of the Sacrament again because last week was district conference and we didn't have it. The meeting was great and hey had a special musical number by the primary children and it was adorable! They sang Nephis courage. We asked a couple behind u...