Thai'd Up for 18 Months: "Those lips look like they were made for something better than playing the clarinet." Week #3

Hey everyone! How are you guys doing? So a few fun facts about today.

I would be entering the MTC this Wednesday had they not changed my mission date. On Wednesday, I'll have doubled the stay at the MTC of an English speaking missionary. If I were going Spanish speaking, I would be halfway done with the MTC.

I feel like I have been here forever and that no previous life ever existed. Ha ha. I hope its true when everyone says the next four weeks are the fastest. The Thai Elders that were here before us leave today. So thats kinda crazy.

So with Thai, we haven't learned Thai script yet. We are learning it this coming week. So right now its all romanized. I guess I have found some things with the language that remind me of Japanese. Whenever they are talking about multiple of something they need classifiers like how we say loaves of bread. They have a ton of those and it reminds me of Japanese when you are saying a number of a certain kind of object. Also, you don't know it is a question until the end of the sentence kind of like ka. They don't in-fluctuate their voices because of the tones so you have to wait until the end of the sentence for the question word. Telling time is super complicated. Once it is the evening at 7 they switch back to saying 1 and then 8 is 2 and so on until midnight. And depending on the time of day you phrase the sentences differently. That'll take some more practice for me to remember.

One of the funny things that happened is we are supposed to invite our "investigators" to church but we are stuck at the MTC so we cant. So they said just pretend. So we were asking if we could be like hey remember how much you loved church and how happy you looked? And then Elder Luker was like "remember at church when you said you wanted to be baptized?" So maybe we can push our investigators along by making up their awesome church experience. Ha ha

We are known as a really loud and apparently "insane" district. All the other districts like to gossip... But you know who is the loudest? When Elder Curtis laughs, it sounds just like the Riddler from the old Batman tv shows. Its so funny.

Yesterday for our district sunday activity Sister Alley came up with the good idea to open to a random scritpure in the Book of Mormon and make it relatable to us. I got lucky and opened up to Alma 42:31... Read it. You'll understand. :)

Elder Ballard gave the devotional on tuesday. For the devotional yesterday, Jannice Kapp Perry spoke. She is awesome. She was telling the story of how her and her husband met. They were in the same music class at BYU and she was wetting up her clarinet. He looked at her and said, "Those lips look like they were made for something better than playing the clarinet." As she finished sharing that statement he walked up to her and gave her a super passionate kiss! The MTC went pretty crazy but it was hilarious. They are the cutest old couple ever.

Sister Brown and I have had a really good week of teaching our "Investigators". We are now understanding nearly everything they say. And we know how to say the things we want to respond with. It makes teaching SO much easier! Although we asked our investigator Naang to read Moroni 10. We asked if he understand it and if he had questions. He responded with some kind of question about Lamanites? So sister Brown just points to me and says Sister Nethercott will explain it to you. So I got nominated to explain who the Lamanites are in Thai. I went simple and said there were ancient people the Lamanites and the Nephites. The Nephites believed in God and the Lamanites didnt. So hopefully that covered that good enough. Man teaching will be so much easier when we can fluently speak Thai!

Dad, you asked what we have learned here at the MTC? Well Elder Cook was saying that we are not here to study the deep doctrine of the church. We are here to affirm our knowledge in the doctrine of Christ so that we can teach it to others. So the spirit is strong and prayers are answered and things are said when you need to here them. So the spirit here is strong but there isn't a lot of church revelation happening here. Just a lot of learning about different insights people have about the doctrine you know your whole life. So that is interesting.

And hey Joey, I now know you are reading this so you should give me your email or address and then I can respond to your letter. :)

Well I love you all and I hope everything is going well in your lives!

Love, Sister Nethercott

P.S. Also I can't open the pictures from grandpa's birthday. Want to mail them? Ha ha And the shorts might come in handy... Maybe send them and I'll find out. Also thanks again so much for those muffins. The food has been awful and limited in choices due to the mission presidents and general authority people here. Those muffins have saved my life. Now if its not too much to ask... I would absolutely love chips and salsa. I've heard the dried mango from costco is really good. Chocolate chips are always delicious. :) Also, what part of wisconsin did we go to? That is where sister Zoller is from.