Thai'd Up for 18 Months: First letter!

Got our first letter from Sister Nethercott today! We were worried her letters were only going to be a couple sentences but I asked her a bunch of questions and she did well!

Sawatdiikha! Hey everyone, Its my first P-day here at the MTC. Its been pretty great so far. Its a really really tight schedule. I feel like they ask you to do so many things with so little time to do them.

1. I've learned quite a bit of Thai I guess. Its really hard to learn with so little study time to learn it. Spanish and Japanese came so easy because I had grown up hearing them but I never heard Thai. So its coming but not exactly easily. The grammar and sentence structure is easy for me to understand but the actually vocabulary is hard to remember with such little time to study it.

2. My comp is Sister Emily Brown from Oregon! She is awesome. We get along really well and are on the same page about things and look at things differently so it makes a good companionship. I share a room with Sister Herrmann and Sister Zoller. We also get along really well so its pretty great.

3. There are 14 of us in our district. 8 sisters and 6 Elders. So far we are all enjoying each other so lets hope that can last for 9 weeks!

4. We didn't stay up late talking but it did take us all a while to fall asleep. I feel like I am all adjusting though. And to avoid staying up late talking we've come up with taking turns sharing about a topic. So far we've made it through all the sisters in my rooms families.

5. The food is pretty gross. And the ice cream is only here twice a week for one meal. And its not that great of ice cream. There are often wraps which aren't great but edible. And there are always fudge bars or ice cream sandwiches. We eat dinner at 4:30 which is super early! So we get sac breakfast and I make sure to get 2 bagels so I can eat one before bed.

6. (I asked her about her friend Elder Marks who we saw when we dropped her off) I did talk to Elder Marks more. We have the same meal and gym time. All the Elders and Sisters in my zone sit together though so I don't really see him during meals. The first gym day we played basketball togetherish and he has definitely been here for 7+ weeks. He was a lot better than I remember him being Jr year in PE.

7. I saw Madi Holt and I see Annika Fraga but haven't talked to her cuz I dont know her well. And I met Riley Adams from Alta who is in my same grade... Its funny I had to get ready for Thailand to meet her.

8. I haven't come across anything I have forgot but I would like a thumbdrive. I think that'll be good for the pictures.

So the bunk beds are the same Dad. But I do think they have new mattresses. They are super squeeky. If I just move my arm it wakes up like the whole room. Im on the top bunk. And we do have a mini fridge but only because my khuu is awesome. She went to BYU so she knows everyone that works here. Her home teachers job is to move stuff. I guess there was an extra minifridge or something so like the third day we walked in our room and there was just this fridge in the corner with a note on it saying here Sister Brown we are awesome cuz we gave you this, Obviously thats not exactly what the note said but thats what I took out of it.

So the first day here we just dropped our stuff off at the room and went straight to class. I have so many book! There are like 5 dictionaries. Two preach my gospels in roman and thai. And just books! So we got to class and it was all in Thai. I didn't understand a thing but learned how to great people, ask how they are and where they are from. Then the next day we learned how to bare our testimonies. And then we had to go teach the next day that we learned how to pray! Yeah teaching when you don't know Thai is a little interesting... We just said what we knew how to say and then left before he could say anything back we couldn't understand. Don't worry he isn't a real investigator. He is our other teacher that we haven't met as our teacher yet. But the next day we went in with questions and invited him to pray and go to church. Yeah we had to make up where and when because we don't know. So that was kinda funny. I just drew him a picture and said 9 o'clock at the church across the street from the MTC. I thought that was good enough.

So we wake up at 6:30 and grab sac breakfast. Then we go to gym and have like two seconds to get ready and go to class. Then we learn until lunch. After lunch is supposed to be more class time but that is when we teach our investigator Txg. After that is dinner (snack time). Then its personal study, companion study, and language study, additional study and bed time. So it sounds like there is a ton of study time. But we sleep on the 4th floor of 17M and learn on the 5th floor of 18M so I feel like going up and down the stairs takes the entire time. Team Thai Thighs. Its just preparing us for all that biking that will be coming up. But it makes me feel like I should be allowed to sleep through gym time. But its kinda nice because we can leave the gate and go to the field. Freedom! ha ha

For sacrament meeting they ask us all to write a five minute talk on a topic so of course the topic was faith. Then they pick about 3 random people and have them come speak. After sacrament our district went to our classroom (where you spend like the entire day, even for personal study) and we shared the talks that we were going to give if we were called. Remember faith is the most important principle of this gospel. Always work and continue to build your faith. Its really the best thing you can be doing to improve your strength in this gospel.

Love you all!

Sitdaa Nethercott

P.S. I can't write you like any Thai because it is all romanized and would not come across right at all.