9 months ago I moved to Thailand...that doesn't really seem real. The school year is almost over...just another week and half left. What?! I feel like its been AGES since I have stepped foot in america. I actually kind of miss it a little bit but life in Thailand is home, it fits now. Some how it all works!

I feel like I understand Asia more and more every day...but then some days I feel like I know nothing. I walk down the street and order my dinner like I have become friends with the cooks. I go to seven eleven to pay all my bills and buy all my "treats" and feel like the people who work there are finally familiar faces. The lady on the street who sells me my fresh cut up fruit and the man who sells me my eggs are all people i feel like i know now, even though i still cant really communicate. It's normal. I actually kind of enjoy it. Sometimes I still walk down the street and think..."How the heck did I end up here, what the is my life?"

What's been happening since we last talked?....

-I went to Australia over our "Spring break" which is actually Songkran Holiday, aka Thai New year! It was one of the best trips I've ever taken because what started out as a adventure with kinda friends ended as a family vacation and it was great! Traveling with 7 people can be seem daunting but it was so fun. Yeah we had conflict but we grew closer as we solved it, we had disagreements but we learned about each other in laying aside our preferences. It was a beautiful mess and it was perfect that way. Going to Australia in general is an adventure but then adding 6 other people you get a memory that you will cherish forever! Oh and it was perfectly fall in Australia...which to me was seriously one of the best things!

Meanwhile back in Thailand...

- The weather is....uh a sauna! Going outside is rather unbearable now because honestly it feels like someone is walking with a blowdryer blowing in your face all day...its about 100 degrees everyday with about 80% humidity and as the weather app told me this week "a wind chill of 118 degrees"! What the heck is a wind chill of 118? It's gross, like really gross!

-I started Thai lessons with a friend in which one of the thai teachers is teaching us. She is really hardcore and I have literally learned so much vocabulary these last couple weeks that I feel like I'm back in school. It's great though because she pushes me way hard and makes me say words until i get them right and then we both laugh when I've pronounced it wrong and actually said something bad. Thai is hard yall!

-I had the opportunity to teach an english course for local temple school kids on Sundays with my friends, Panya, Bobby and Adam, for 8 weeks. We just recently finished with an overnight camp. It was really fun and challenging and i couldn't imagine doing it with anyone else. Praying for more opportunity to share the gospel to local school kids through english courses at the church!

-I have officially have a plane ticket home for the summer. I will be in America June 10-July 21 Some things I am really looking forward to: my mom's tears as she picks me up at the airport, chickfila, snuggles with my dog, best friend sleepovers, summer camp worship nights, eating an obnoxious amount of salad and veggies, talking non-stop and understanding every word that surrounds me, driving my car, taking pictures of friends (book your session), drinking endless amount of tap water, going to target and figuring out how to get everything back, going to the grocery store and making dinner, late nights with friends, and so many other things! It's weird though, because I am going to miss Thailand...im mostly gonna miss my new friends, and eating dinner for a dollar because I am going to go broke! I know going home will be an emotional journey and im preparing for it but it cant be much worse than the emotional roller coaster of moving overseas and living the last 9 months, so im ready for it!

God has been teaching me so much these past few months. Through ups and downs his love steadies my weary soul. The current lesson he is teaching me is love.

Bear with me for a moment. Im talking about actual christ-like love to everyone. Its so hard y'all! (yes I still say y'all don't worry) I feel like lately the Lord has been showing me just how selfish I am and how much i need to let go of my preferences for others, (hint hint Australia) not because they are going to but because he did. I got to teach in HS chapel for easter and the theme i shared with them was the love of God. How when he went up to the cross to pay the debt of our sins he bore all our shame and our guilt so we could be blameless before the Father.

He didn't defend himself when he had every right to, because it was the father's will. He took it all for me. That has been sinking in lately. I love because HE first loved me not because the person I love loves me, no GOD loved me before I loved him back. The Lord has been showing me how selfish my love is and yes, its hard to love people like Christ loves people, but I'm learning when I do it changes people. When you lay down your life for others they begin to see the Love of the Father and they do the same. It's contagious the love of Christ. The more you show it to others, not just the people who are easy to love, but the ones you have to pray to love every day, when you love those people like that, it changes them but it also changes you, it changes me!

Man! As I look back on these last 9 months and could write pages and pages on the lessons I have learned. God is constantly refining me and chiseling away at my heart. It's hard but its worth it.