Week 4

สวัสดีครับ!!

It has been another good week at the MTC.   Not too many things to talk about. For the most part it has been a normal week with lots of studying. We are all sick to some degree. I usually wake up feeling terrible but feel relatively fine by the end of the day. We teach three lessons a week in Thai. Two with "interested persons" and one with a member. These are always stressful but always turn out good. Right now I am memorizing the first vision. I'll try to send a video of me saying it in Thai when I get it. The definite highlight of the week was Elder Anderson, the Apostle, came and spoke to us and I got to sing in the choir. He talked about the temple and a lot of the things he said resonated with me on a personal level especially because of an experience I had had that morning in the temple. One of the coolest parts though was at the end. Elder Anderson went around and shook hands with missionaries. I was up in the choir section and his grandkids came up and shook our hands.  As he went around shaking hands, the organist was playing, "The Spirit of God" as background music. About half way through the song we all started singing along and the organ switched from a quiet background music to the full volume. It was very powerful when 2100 missionaries sang the chorus,

"We'll sing and we'll shout with the armies of heaven,

Hosanna, hosanna to God and the Lamb!

Let glory to them in the highest be given,

Henceforth and forever, Amen and amen!"
 

Then we all sang, "Called to Serve" and that was super powerful too! I just found out that I will get to be in the missionary choir at General Conference!! I am so excited!!

Thanks everyone! I love you all!! Stay safe! 

 

 

Week 3

It has been an eventful week in every aspect. Learning Thai is really stressful. We honestly don't have the time I wish we had to study. We are suppose to memorize 35 words a day, prepare 20min lessons for members every Monday and prepare 20min. investigator lessons 1 or 2 times a week. We gave our first investigator lesson on Saturday and our second member lesson yesterday. We are always super stressed about the lessons but at the end of each lesson we are pleasantly surprised at how well it went. We go in with the things we want to talk about, pray for the Spirit to be with us and who we are teaching and go for it and it always turns out being powerful. Thai is really hard though. I am really good at pronunciation and I'm decent at reading, but it's hard for me to remember all the words and I still have a hard time figuring out what the tones are.

The most stressful thing for me however are my Filipino companionship. They never know where to go and are always late to stuff. One of them had 3 wisdom teeth taken out this week and I had a fun time running around picking up prescriptions and getting his companion fed because he had missed lunch. One Filipino had to go to the doctor to get his ingrown toenail cut free. He couldn't walk for a day so I had to stay with him so his companion could go to class. But that was fine, that was the closest day I got to 35 words. I memorized 32. 

Our Pi Thais (older Thai missionaries) left yesterday, along with the Cambodian missionaries. That was really sad. They had helped us so much and they were so fun to be with.  Now are zone is 70% smaller and its just my district and a small Vietnamese district on our residence floor. It will be another 3 weeks to new Thai missionaries come and we get to be the Pi thais. So these next three weeks are going to just be intense language study. The bright side of the Pi Thais leaving is we just got 3 new teachers. So I'm pretty optimistic about these next weeks.

With the Pi Thais leaving the new zone leaders were called and from my district. So that was awesome. They are a super awesome companionship and will do a great job. And it will be nice having some more leadership help in my district. 

Another not so fun thing this week was the fires. we were able to see the flames from here and the air has been terrible. It still smells like smoke outside. At one point we had ashes falling from the sky.

A funny thing that happened this week was the amount of food and cold drinks sent to a vietamese. It was A LOT. on Saturday we had "Thanksgiving" and at as much food as we could but barely touched just because of the amount of food and most of the older missionaries had there own food.
 

Thanks for all the love and support! and thanks for the letters and packages. Those are always fun to get! Love you all, stay safe!

 

Week 2

สวัสดีครับ!!
 

I can't believe its been two weeks. This week has been so packed! We have had so much to learn. This week I learned how to pray, bear a testimony, share a scripture, and extend a commitment in Thai. Yesterday we gave our first lesson in Thai. It was so stressful, but it all kind of came together and the lessons went a lot better than expected. 

   MTC life is fun. There are so many of us and we all work so hard. The new buildings are really nice and there are places everywhere inside and outside to study. It is honestly really nice to be able to spend so much time studying. I am learning so much about the gospel, myself, Christ, how to be a district leader and more. I can feel myself growing in so many ways and it is the best feeling ever. The devotionals have been so amazing. We have them every Sunday and Tuesday. I have learned so much about the Character of Christ, discipleship, grace, the power of God, and so much more. Being a district leader 

   Funny story from last week. When we first got here we met all the older missionaries in our zone in our residences. They were ecstatic to see us and had been waiting three weeks. There was this Filipino elder and a Korean elder who couldn't speak english. The Filipino elder had a Filipino companion who would translate. The Korean elder would just speak in the Thai he knew, which was pretty good but I didn't know any of it. On Sunday, I went to Branch Council and all the district leaders went over how things are going in the zone and asked questions to President Moon. This Filipino elder asked questions and discussed problems in fluent English and just kind of smiled at me  and the two other new district leaders. Then in Sacrament meeting, because it was fast and testimony meeting, the Korean Elder got up and bore his testimony in fluent English, as in he was raised in Utah. It was honestly so funny and we have been laughing at that all week. Sorry I don't have any cool pictures. We had a fun time drinking enough water to get the water bottle water fountain to 5000. The bird is just a nice blue jay that I thought was pretty. And the other is MTC cat. It wanders around campus and will let the missionaries pet/hold it.
 

    I am doing well, I love you all. ผมรู้ว่าศาสนาจักรของพระเยชูคริสต์เป็นความจริงครับ.

Week 1

Hey everyone!

The past week has been so amazing! I was able to have my first baptism last Wednesday. It was such a wonderful opportunity to baptize my youngest sister Emma! Arriving at the MTC was fun but really confusing. We mainly just got situated and met our district. My companion is Elder Larson. He's awesome. He is from Utah but spent the last 3 years in Hong Kong. The rest of the week has been so amazing! On our first real day, all of the new missionaries in our zone got to meet each other and the rest of the zone, then we all met the Branch President, President Moon. He called me to be the district leader which was terrifying because I had only been here for a day. But my companion has been awesome and helps me remember the schedule and where things are at. There are 12 missionaries in my district, and I feel so lucky because they are all so amazing! Learning Thai is so hard but it's shocking how well we are all learning. Our teachers are Brother Hunt and Sister Tirrell and they are so great! Brother Hunt was Mckay Bruse's companion in Thailand so that was kind of funny.

  There is this companionship in my district from the Philipines who don't speak English very well. They are really struggling with Thai and I was worried about one of them because I wasn't sure how motivated he was to learn or where his faith was. But it was a humbling experience seeing how wrong I was. He firmly believes in the Gospel and and has faith that the Spirit will help him and he is so kind to everyone. Elder Larson and I and these Filipinos wake up at 5:30 Wed-Sat to get an extra hour of language study with a handful of the older Thai missionaries. The other funny thing that just happened was I met a college student working here and I saw "Shill" on his name tag. I was like "hey, we have the same last name" He was pleasantly surprised and asked me where I am from. I told him Farmington but that the Shill side of my family comes out of Arizona. Which is where he is from. He is related to Otto Shill and I told him I used to swim in his pool when I was 2. So that was fun. And he totally looked like a Shill too. 

On P-days, my zone wakes up at 5 to go to the temple. That was really powerful today! Sunday was super busy! I had tons of meetings and trainings, mission conference, choir (which is amazing!), and we watched a talk by Elder Bednar about understanding how the Spirit influences us as we strive to be good, keep the commandments, and honor our covenants. It was super powerful and eye opening.

I want you all to know that I love it here so much! I love all that I am learning and doing. I love God, I love you all, and I am grateful for all I am learning/becoming here. Stay safe everyone!