Week 9

สวัสดีครับ!!

Another week to remember. Full of lots of smiles and lots of tears. It started pretty amazing with another Apostle coming to talk to us. Elder Soares came and talked about how to have a successful and happy mission. It was really powerful. Another sick missionary and I almost didn't go to the devotional because we were trying to rest. But some elders in our zone emailed  us telling us it was an Apostle. So we ran over and made it just in time. Elder Soares is a new Apostle. In my mind the twelve Apostles are the ones I have grown up with. I accepted Elder Soares as an apostle but still didn't value him and his teachings like the other Apostles. But, as I sat at the devotional we started by singing some prelude hymns. I wasn't singing because my head was hurting, but the last song was Nearer My God to Thee. I love this song so I decided to sing along, then at the climax of the song Elder Soares walked in and we all stood. I cried as I sang the rest of that song. I know the Spirit testified to me that Elder Soares is an Apostle of God and has all of the same power and authority as all the other Apostles. So that was a really cool experience. The next day I went to my concussion place and the Doctor told me I needed to stay for a week or two. My follow up is tomorrow, so hopefully they will give me the thumbs up to go to Thailand. I am feeling a lot better and I am SO GRATEFUL for all of your prayers!!

The next day was pretty rough. We had one of the new Hmong elders go home. It was so confusing to all of us. He is a new convert and has this amazing testimony. And it was all so sudden. I had been resting in my room and my companion walked in and told me he was leaving. I got out and our whole zone walked with him to the building where he got picked up. He hugged all of us like 5 times. Lots of tears from everyone. But that Friday was even worse. One of the Vietnamese elders went home too. He had literally made it the 9 weeks. He was everyone's favorite and had a great testimony. He had done competition shooting and we would have a duel every night with these little nerf guns. He had to go home because of anxiety. It was so sad. Our whole zone went with him as well to see him off. That was really sad. Then everyone else started packing to go to there respective countries and I just kind of watched. It was a mix of excitement and "Oh dang it I still have two weeks here". They all left Monday morning at 3:30am. We all went to the building where the bus would pick them up and we all said our goodbyes. 

So, they left and I am now in a trio with the only two other Thai elders. Then there are like 10 Khmer elders and the Hmong district. They are good missionaries. I love my two Companions. There names are Elder Burgess and Elder Lemone. Going to class is kind of weird but is actually pretty fun. I love all the teachers and everyone in my district. I got to be with them for a TRC and listen as they struggled their way through the lesson with someone me and my companion taught 7 weeks ago. It was so fun because this time I could understand a lot more of what he said back to us. And I could explain it to my two companions after. His name is Brother Brown. He has come to TRCs every Monday for the past 3 years to listen to missionaries struggle to say anything in Thai. When me and my comp taught him 7 weeks ago we struggled a bit and he told us to have confidence. At the end of the lesson yesterday I was able to bare my testimony about following the prophet and the blessings that come to us and our families as we do so. It was really fun for Brother Brown and me because of the obvious growth that had taken place in my Thai and ability to invite the Spirit in Thai. 

 

ผมรักพวกคุณ! The Gospel is true! God loves His Children! I love you all!

Elder Shill 

Week 8 (Concussion) :(

Hey Everyone!

This week will definitely be one of my most remembered. Full of good and hard experiences. The best parts of this week were definitely the lessons we gave. So we have two people we are teaching (Sister Pat and Brother Lucky).  Our teachers act as real people they taught on their missions in Thailand. Our lessons with Sister Pat have struggled. We struggle to give effective lessons that resonate with her.  I think that we over think our lessons and maybe started off wrong. Anyways, Sister Pat hadn't progressed at all and still hadn't prayed. But we learned some new things about how to teach and our last lesson was awesome. In that lesson we finished the Plan of Salvation and taught about faith. But we made it perfect!  Through simple teaching, a concise video and some perfect scriptures out of Alma 33, we helped her see how what we had to teach could bless her life as a single mother. And we gave her the tools to learn  more for herself. Then she prayed at the end of our lessons!!! :) My companion and I were so thrilled and couldn't have been happier to see her progress!  Then we one-upped  that. Our lessons with B. Lucky have been consecutively perfect and have connected so well. At the end of the lesson our teacher evaluates us and he is always just like " Wow, that was amazing" So anyways our last lesson was on Faith Repentance and Baptism! That week, we had him read 2 Nephi 31-32. Those chapters talk about Christ's baptism and how we must pray to learn truth through the Holy Ghost. In this lessons we read from Alma 33 again and helped Brother Lucky realize that he had shown, and exercised his faith by praying, reading the scriptures, and by coming to church. . We taught that learning the Gospel of Jesus Christ is true is important because it is through the gospel (Faith, Repentance, Baptism, the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end) we can become clean, gain more happiness in this life, and ultimately live with God again. We taught more about repentance and baptism and showed a video of Christ being baptized.  We asked if he had faith in the things we taught and he said he did. Then I had the opportunity to ask if he would follow the example of the Jesus Christ by being baptized by someone who holds the priesthood of God. He accepted!! He said he had a feeling it was a good thing. He told us he would continue to try to prepare to be baptized by a certain date.  I know these lessons aren't real, but we all felt the Spirit and it has gotten me so excited to go to Thailand.

Now for some lame/embarrassing news. Back on the 13th, I was walking out of my room and thought I'd try to swing from the door frame and see how far forward I could throw myself. Well, at the peak of the swing, I slipped and landed on my head. I thought I was okay but my headaches never stopped. So, that Tuesday I went to the doctor. He told me I had a minor concussion and that I shouldn't study. It didn't get any better throughout the week. On Saturday, my companion and another Elder from our zone needed to see a doctor, but the 2 places by the MTC were closed, so they shuttled us to the hospital. The doctor was for them but we all went together so I was able to ask about my concussion. He just said rest and mentioned a concussion place if I needed expert advice. The fun part of that trip was the shuttle driver took us to McDonald's and we bought food through the drive through. The MTC knew about my concussion and scheduled a follow-up appt. for yesterday. That doctor told me I had to stop going to class and wanted to send me to this concussion place. I have an appt. for tomorrow. The scary thing is I am supposed to leave for Thailand on the 29th. So there are three possibilities. I'll heal and be ready to leave on Monday. They will extend my MTC stay to heal, or I'll be sent home to recover. And I don't know when they could fly me out next. As you could imagine I was pretty bummed to hear this. Not to mention how embarrassed I feel that something as silly as swinging from a door frame could postpone my departure date for Thailand. Now I am just sitting in my residence with the lights out praying I will be ready by Monday. But I understand that my will might not be the Lord's will. In the long run I know to me there isn't that big of a difference but maybe to the Lord and the people in Thailand there is a purpose for it. I know the Gospel is true. I know that God loves His children.  Don't do dumb things...

Love Elder Shill

 

ps. I'll send pictures next week

Week 7 (Video of 1st Vision in Thai)

สวัสดีครับ!! Hey everyone!

It's been another great week. On Wednesday we had 15 Khmer and 9 Thai missionaries arrive! And they are all so awesome. Only two of the Thai missionaries are elders though which was a little sad just because there are only two more people we can speak Thai within our residences. It was also fun to see my cousin Sister Linford this week! This week we had our first Skype TRC, where you Skype people members in Thailand and give a lesson. But they didn't have enough people so we Skyped someone from Provo, and it took us 15 minutes of getting the tech to work. We also gave a lesson to Sister Pat and 2 to Brother Lucky. The one with Sister Pat crashed and burned. We had spent so much time thinking about what she needed and how to teach her that we didn't have time to practice it and we only got about 40% of the way through which ended up being pointless without the rest of the lesson. :/ But our lessons with Brother Lucky have been awesome!!! They flow and we have been able to teach in a way that makes sense to him and he "came to church with us last Sunday" :) We are learning a lot about how to teach in these lessons. The Thai is coming. I can't talk about anything outside of the gospel but I can talk a fair amount and explain gospel concepts. I can read the scriptures and with looking up maybe two or three words in a verse can understand the meaning. Love you all!   Have a good week.

 

 

 

Week 6

สวัสดีครับ!! Hey everyone!

This week was awesome. (Not much happened outside of Conference, but it was so powerful and personally inspiring to me, so most of this email are my thoughts about what was spoken, ขอโทษ ) We had Choir practice everyday at 7:15am which was a little stressful because we already weren't that healthy and were now getting less sleep, and it took time out of studying in class. But man was it worth it!! It was so fun Saturday morning when we all gathered and got on buses with a travel companion and drove to the conference center. While the morning session was going on we were practicing in a different room. And then at 12:30 pm we went into the conference center and it was so awesome!! That room is huge!! (Sits 22,000 people) and the organ is even bigger in person! It was such a neat opportunity sing with that. The songs were so powerful to me and turned out pretty good considering we had one week to prepare.

The rest of Conference was amazing! 2 hour church,  and 12 temples!!!!!!!! :D including Cambodia! The talks in conference seemed to have two themes to me. Trials and Ministering. Elder Anderson was accurate when he described how we can understand how trials are apart of life, but when they come to us personally, they can take our breath away. We learned about how all of us will face times, long or short, where our souls will be wounded. But, that we need to have hope, patience, and forgiveness. My favorite quote from conference was from Elder Anderson's talk. "Your night will pass, because the Son did rise with healing in His wings" We were taught to have hope in the Atonement of the Savior. My dad emailed me last week about a talk in church that Sunday about adversity and these are some thoughts I shared back, "..all things are made fair (in the next life) through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. God allows unfairness in this world to help accomplish his work. But there is still justice. We read about all the pain that Jehovah causes in the Old Testament and how God chastises His people. But Christ new He would experience all those pains when He atoned for the sins and pains of the world in the Garden. It gives me more gratitude for the atonement by knowing that Christ was willing to cause Himself incomprehensible pain and suffering to help us become like him. And it gives me motivation to live the Gospel to the best of my abilities to limit the amount of pain Christ had to feel because of me. And to help others utilize the atonement so that the suffering Christ felt doesn't go to waste." Through the atonement and healing powers of Christ, we can find peace, comfort, and love from Him. I promise that I have seen that in my life, and I have seen in myself how sometimes, the most amount of growth comes after struggles, pain, and failure. And because everyone goes through trials, it is crucial for us as disciples of Christ to try to love everyone and show our gratitude to God by serving His children. And I know we will receive added blessings and happiness as a side benefit for serving God. I hope everyone enjoyed conference as much as I did and found added motivation to do God's will and follow the Savior. This week we get 24 new Thai and Cambodian missionaries!! Along with my cousin Sister Linford! It was also a treat this week finding my cousin Matt Mella working in the Cafeteria serving my favorite meal at the MTC. He has his mission call so we talked for a bit about the MTC. If you can't tell by now I love being a missionary. I know I am not in the field yet but I still love it here in the MTC and am grateful for all I am learning and becoming! Love you all! God lives and loves His children. Stay safe! 

General Conference Missionary Choir

Oh my heart... <3 <3

 

 

 

Week 5 (half way through MTC)

สวัสดีครับ!!

This week marked the half way point at the MTC - which was kind of stressful because I don't feel like I'm half way ready to go and serve the people in Thailand. This week we got letters from our Pi Thais in Thailand. They are loving it so much and one of them already had someone commit to be baptized!! All the district leaders were released this week. It was such a great opportunity for me to have that calling and learn and help the other missionaries and our zone leaders. But at the same time I'm excited to have less things to worry about and can spend more time on the language... after we are done practicing for General Conference. Which is awesome. The director at the MTC is Brother Egget. He is so amazing! He has the funniest sense of humor and always has amazing stories. Oh, we will be singing in the Saturday afternoon session. This week in our TRC (which is just giving a member a lesson in Thai) We talked about how because God loves us and has blessed us with so much, and sent His Son to atone for all the sins and sufferings of the world, that we in return should be grateful and love him. And we know that we show our love to God be serving His children and feeding His sheep. In each of the two lessons, we gave the members a Book of Mormon and asked them to offer it to someone who could use the blessings of the restored gospel. That was fun because I think it caught them off guard but at the same time was powerful because it was a good reminder to all of us how Heavenly Father loves all His children and wants all of them to receive blessings from Him. We had our second lessons with Sister Pat and Brother Lucky, (who are actually just our teachers, Sister Tirrel and Brother Hunt). We taught about the restoration of the gospel. In our lesson with Sister Pat, she hadn't prayed that week and is still hesitant about prayer. And we were expecting Brother lucky to have also forgotten to pray but we were so astonished and thrilled to hear that he had prayed twice that week. We had him pray at the beginning of the lesson and then were able to explain to him how happy his Father in Heaven is that Brother Lucky is showing faith and how God will bless us when we pray to Him. So that was awesome! We also gave him a Book of Mormon in that lesson and he accepted the invitation to read it every day and pray about it to God. 

I have had a fun time strengthening and sharing my testimony here in the MTC. 

I know God lives and loves all of His children, I know Jesus Christ atoned for all the sins and pains of us and through Him we can receive forgiveness and then become like him. I know that the Gospel is true and that God still speaks to us through modern day prophets because He loves us and wants to help us in our day. I hope everyone is excited to hear the speakers this General Conference. I challenge you all to be thinking about the questions you have, write them down and pray about them, and then listen to the speakers during General Conference and I promise the Holy Spirit will speak to your heart. He has to mine. I know the Book of Mormon contains the word of God, and that through the Book of Mormon, we can learn of Him, and His Gospel, and that we will feel the Holy Ghost in our lives. I love you all!!! Thanks for your prayers! Have a good week :)

 

- Elder Shill