Thai'd Up for 18 Months: I decided the MTC is just a huge social experiment. Week #4

Hey everyone! I hope you are all doing awesome!

So I think I forgot to mention it in my last email but all of the new mission presidents for this year were here taking over the mtc. They had all these private meetings so like half of all our main stuff was blocked off. It was honestly kind of annoying. But at one point all of the apostles where here and the Prophet and everything! Did I ever see them or meet any of them? Of course not. But at the devotional I guess I saw 6 of them. Elder Christofferson spoke but on the stand sat: Elder Dallin H. Oaks, M. Russel Ballard, David A. Bednar, Neil A. Anderson, and Nelson. Im not good with their names... Thats kind of embarrassing. So Elder D. Todd Christofferson spoke about the worth of souls. One of the things he said was that the worth of a soul is the capacity to be like God. Thats pretty profound when you think of it that way. Another thing I really liked that he said is that charity comes from God, you don't have to create it, just ask for it. I have always loved Moroni 10 : 45ish. It is how I want to live and so to hear that I can just ask for it and not create it, well that saves me a lot of stress. And the final thing I'll mention from his talk is something kind of funny he said, "The Savior not only knows you, but likes you. You will feel his friendship." I thought it was funny because I never thought of it like that. Its so simple and so true.

Then Wednesday was nothing exciting other than the fact we had normal food choices! So while the apostles were all here the food managed to get worse because they closed off half of the cafeteria and catored to the mission pres. and apostles while leaving us with one very poor choice of what to eat. So that was fun. Now we at least have options of what gross food we want. Ha ha

Thursday was fun because for our service time we got to move all the furniture back into the rooms where the mission presidents were. Once we finished with that they let us hang the flags! It was really fun because they have a flag for what seems like every country. Then you get to pick about 30-40 and hang them up. So obviously we made somewhat of a big deal about the Thai flag as we rose it. So now we are going to try and do flags every service day! :)

Friday was pretty normal. I can't think of anything worth telling. And then Saturday was our first day of TRC! I love TRC. It is probably more stressful for other people but there are only so many people in the Provo area that speak Thai. So pretty much they are all return missionaries from Thailand and they are super nice. They have been in the same shoes we are in so they knew how to make us feel comfortable and even translated things they knew we wouldn't know to English for us. So you probably don't even know what TRC is. Its where you practice teaching in Thai to people from the outside world. Normally they can be real investigators if you are speaking a common language. But not with Thai. So we kind of just share a spiritual thought and then we asked about their missions. I can't wait to do it again next Saturday. :)

Sunday we had the president of the mission department speak at the devotional. I forget his name. He spoke on getting along with your companion and showed us a lot of those old cheesy church commercials. Man no wonder people used to think we were so weird. Ha ha Im a Mormon is probably more effective. But if any of you have seen those well they give a good laugh.

In class this week we learned Thai script!!! Oh my gosh its pretty complicated to read. i don't know if you can read my explanation from the picture from my journal but there are silent letters and invisible letters and then the tones and everything. There are about 44 consonants and 43 vowels. So I got those down pretty quick because I really wanted to learn to write from the day I got my call. Its really distracting though because now i hate studying vocabulary. I just want to practice reading and writing. ha ha. Also, the teachers didn't really explain it to us. They just said here are your cards, go lean it. And then when we have questions we have to ask them.

Guess what I learned this week! the first two should say I love my family the other one with the messier board is how I decided my name was spelt. The teacher wouldn't help me so I made Elder Williams help me figure it out. It took us probably 45 minutes. Why is our last name so complicated? I guess we'll see how close I am when I get my other name tag!

One of the funniest things I've heard came out of Elder Curtis's mouth this week. I think it was when we were being introduced to Thai script and he said, "Im still in T-ball and you just threw me a fast ball." Yep they move you along quick here. They like to teach you everything at once. Which makes us feel a lot of pressure to know the language in one day. We just have to remind ourselves all the time that we have only been here for less than a month. The good thing about Thai though is that there are no verb conjugations. You just say like yesterday and keep the rest of it the same. So its not like run and ran. Hopefully that keeps it a bit easier.

On Sunday it was funny... We met this Thai interpreter that volunteers at the MTC. He returned from his mission in August. So this Elder from Thailand was talking to him and told him sister Brown had a black heart. And she was like what? And the interpreter said, say this to him. So she said whatever it was that he told her. And then the Thai Elder was saying you are not a sister. And so Sister Brown asked the interpreter what it was he told her to say and he responded, "Its just a minor cuss word." Ha ha a return missionary for less than a year told her to swear at a Thai Elder while at the MTC. Sister Brown felt so bad. Ha ha its was funny.

Well thats about all from this week. I love you all and hope things are going well in your lives!

-Sister Nethercott

P.S. I decided the MTC is just a huge social experiment. I was talking about it and was saying that Thailand was just some made up place. That they stick us here and tell us we are going to Thailand and then brain wash memories into us so we think it exists. This place really is just so weird. Ha ha and then when the other Thai Elders left, they came back! Their flight was canceled but really, I just think it supports my conspiracy. This place kinda reminds me of Enders Game. Sorry... this place is probably just making me go crazy. Ha ha Love you guys!