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!
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