These are fields of garlic in the background.  In front are beans.  The people are harvesting the garlic

This was the field that the Elders helped plant cabbage in.  The plants that you can see are pepper plants.  The ones that grow the little red peppers

larger pepper plants

They plant the cabbage seed in a raised bed.  after they grow big enough, someone comes and pulls them up to plant them in the field.

Cabbage field being planted

These are all raised beds.  someone has already gone through and made holes for the plants and has put manure in each one.  They bring the plants and drop them in the holes and then someone comes and plants them.

Just after they are planted they get a good watering.  All of the sticks that you see are sprinklers.

The work crew

Got to clean up in the ditch.

doesn't matter where you are, you have access to a dish.  You should see the TV and speaker systems that are in some of these shacks.

Border of Myanmar.  They wouldn't let us go past the sign.  There were about 16 soldiers stationed at this crossing.  When we were going back home we were stopped about 10 kilometers from this checkpoint and asked where we had come from and what our business was up there.  They checked the car and were satisfied that we hadn't smuggled anyone or anything and we were on our way.

Service 13 Feb 2017

This past week we had a couple of opportunities to go to members houses and help them in their yards.  The first 4 pictures were when we went to Brother Phong and Sister Noi's home.  He is the Elders Quorum President and she is in the Relief Society Presidency.  It is the season for leaves falling.  Kind of weird that the leaves fall and yet it is still green.  I got to sweep the leaves that were on the driveway. I used a broom that kind of looks like a kitchen broom.  The young elders got to use machetes and a scythe to cut the trees and grass along the road to their house.

The next few pictures are when we went to Brother Damrong's house.  He is on the high council and a teacher in Elders quorum.  He had a lot of trees that were growing around his house.  He needed them cut down and some of them trimmed so they would not take out his power lines coming to the house.  The Laotion Elder took off his shoes and climbed the tree to trim the branches.  Not sure if this was a safe activity for the Elders but I told them I wouldn't tell Sister Johnson that they were playing with machetes and climbing trees.

It sure makes you feel good to go and do some physical work.

Brother Prod's place for fishing 1-16-2017

These are pics from a p-day that we had at a members house in the mountains.  The Elders really wanted to go fishing and the Sisters were good sports about going and just enjoying the relaxing time by the ponds and the creek.  No one caught a fish with a pole, so they tried their hand at the net.  Success!!  They caught 2 big ones and 6 smaller ones.  The two big ones they barbecued.  To prepare them, they rub them down with a big grain salt.  They put lemon grass, garlic, and onion down the throat and put them on the grill.  If you couldn't tell, he did not clean the fish.  It went on whole.  The smaller fish they made a soup with them.  They did clean them first and then put them in the water with some spices.  It was so delicious!  Needless to say it all got eaten.  The two big ones were very very tasty.  Even with all the salt that is put on the outside, they were not salty tasting at all.  I wish I could have this yard exported to home.