"kick it towards the gigglies." week #6

Well it was week six at the MTC. And well after six weeks there isn't really anything new to write about... I'll try my best to come up with something. Ha ha

The Tuesday devotional was pretty cool. I know it was an answer to prayers for certain people within the district. Elder Neil L. Anderson spoke about feeling the spirit. He mentioned that we all receive different spiritual gifts. That we don't have to have them all. We just have to work on magnifying the gift that we have been given. He said, "you can be you and that is sufficient." He talked about the spirit and revelation and says that it is something that grows within you. Sometimes I think we all assume that we have to be good at everything and if we aren't trying to be good at everything then we have failed. It was nice having an apostle say that being you is sufficient. 

On Wednesday our district hosted again. It was funny because everyone was complaining about the heat and I kept saying to convince yourself this is cold because its gonna be a whole lot worse than this in Thailand. So when we walked up to class and everyone was sweating they asked our teachers if this was considered hot in Thailand. They said the temperature that it was outside would be considered a good day. Ha ha I'm just glad I wasn't really hot. Hopefully that luck stays with me in Thailand... Doubtful. But then our teachers were talking about the rainy season and how it is even really hot then. They said it gets really hot and when it rains you feel just okay because your still so hot. Ha ha That's something to look forward to... I guess.

When we hosted there were 650 new missionaries arriving. Mom, you asked a couple weeks ago if it was crowded. Well it is now. Ha ha There are all these English speakers that have invaded our floor and now we can never find a room to teach the investigators. There are always people around and Sister Brown and I had a companion inventory in a broom closet! Ha ha The only things that made it worth walking up the the 5th floor everyday is that we had space, pretty much the whole floor to us and the Cambodes and a few Portuguese. Speaking of the Cambodes they leave this week! Along with the Viets. So our zone will shrink for about five seconds before all the new Thais get here! They are splitting them up into 2 districts and they will be in two separate buildings from us (7 & 10). They will probably hog all the teachers which we aren't too happy about but we will try to love them anyway. They get brother Shipley and sister Stolworthy. They are gonna have so much fun with them as their teachers. We love them a lot. There are 20 new Thais coming in so our district gets to stay the special huge district! Ha ha

Do all the mom's think we are best friends with Elder Visser? I think the mom's tend to think that the mothers they talk to most are the missionaries that talk the most. Ha ha you all send us updates about him. Sister Brown even got his weekly email in her package. Ha ha Its nice to hear he is adjusting so well... But its pretty funny. (The mom of an Elder that just went to Thailand from their district last week shared his first letter in Thailand with us other moms. We were so excited and thought our daughters would be too! haha)

Saturday we played district kickball against the Cambodes/ a few Viets. It was pretty fun! The Cambodes seemed to take it pretty seriously and us Thais were just laughing and having a good time. I was standing by the line to kick for the Cambodes and I heard them say, "kick it towards the gigglies." Ha ha I like that our district can have such a good time with everything. 

Last night we got to walk to the Marriott center because they are doing construction in the gym. That was pretty fun! We got to go into the real world a bit farther than the temple. Richard I Heaton spoke about teaching with the spirit. Hey dad, do you know him? He's a Japan guy. Ha ha

Well I love you all and I hope you have had an awesome week!

Love, Sister Nethercott

Chowtime!

Classtime 

Our District with the Thais, Cambodes, & Viets

Hermana Ferro? She is the companion of the sister from Thailand. She is from Peru. So she always speaks spanish to sister Zoller and I. She is super cute.

Our group +1

Sister Zoller, Herman, Brown and me. My roomies! 

Looks like they're studying hard- Sister Brown & Nethercott

We have passed our month mark! Week 5

We have passed our month mark! And what a way to celebrate with ice cream bars and fireworks... Oh wait that was supposed to be celebrating for the 4th of July. But we only have one more month to go here at the MTC!

Monday, was pday as usual. The temple was closed so unfortunately we weren't able to go for our regular pday activity. However, class that night was really good. Since being at the MTC we have seen clips and recordings of previous devotionals Elder Bednar has given. He really knows how to speak directly to missionaries. When he speaks, he knows what to say and how to say it. I always feel so impacted by the things he teaches. So for class on Monday, we watched a clip from a devotional Elder Bednar gave about promptings from the Holy Ghost. He was saying that most promptings aren't even recognized as an important prompting from the spirit. You don't always feel that burning or see visions of what you need to do. As long as you are trying your best to be a good boy or girl and act on the good thoughts you have, that is you acting on spiritual promptings. He told a story from his mission in which he had the thought President Packer might need money in case he got hungry on the train in Germany. That money ended up saving him and his wife from a lot of trouble when crossing through Eastern Germany with an extended passport. If Elder Bednar wouldn't have acted on that prompting of, "oh they might be hungry and want to buy some food," they would have not made it through the crossing of borders and would have been kicked off the train. With that money they were able to do what I think he called spiritual bargaining and paid the guard off. All he thought was they might be hungry, but the Lord knew what they needed the money for. He made sure to tell one of his righteous servants to give money to them, even though he didn't know why he was doing it. We don't always have to know the why as long as we are acting on the good thoughts we are having.

Tuesday was pretty uneventful except the devotional. Lowell M. Snow, a former member from the quorum of the seventy spoke. I think he actually said that he was from Draper. Anyway, he spoke about being converted. That it is not enough to just be converted to the church, but that you have to be converted to the Lord.

Wednesday we got to host the new missionaries! That was uh, interesting. Ha ha It was pretty hot that day so we all got a bit sweaty. Oh and our whole district was wearing pink, because on Wednesdays we wear pink. And if you aren't, you can't sit with us... And actually we couldn't find Sister Pitts or Sister Alley at dinner (and they weren't wearing pink). Sorry, back to hosting. I saw the Days. The ones in our ward I don't know really well. Their son is going to Korea. So they snatched a pic that might be coming your way. I kinda promised I would make sure that Elder Day was doing alright, but I haven't seen him since dinner that night... I'm sure he is great though! Girls have such heavy suitcases! Really the Elders should host the Sisters and the Sisters should host the Elders. If only we didn't have to show them to their rooms. But my forearm muscle, you can honestly feel the difference! Ha ha

Thursday was not too eventful... When Sister Brown and I taught our "investigator" Naang this week, well we taught him about baptism. Ha ha And as a district, we are trying to keep our lessons to the time limit. Well we were running short on time so we gave him the baptismal invitation and he responded by saying I don't know enough to be baptized. So I told him that we would teach him and help him prepare. I asked him to pray this week before our next lesson and ask Heavenly Father if he wanted him to be baptized. He said he would, but Sister Brown didn't understand exactly what I told him to do so she thought he said he would be baptized. So she got all excited and told him, "Sidta mii kwamsug khun yaag rab baptidsama mag mag mag!" Which translates to something like, "I am so so so so happy you want to be baptized!" He just looked a little confused and I thought maybe I didn't understand her Thai. But after we got out and talked about, well she thought he said yes I will be baptized. Ha ha I'm sure next lesson we can get him to commit and then she can really express her joy. But that's why teaching in Thai is so fun, because you get to have all those fun misunderstandings.

Friday was a good day! Oh I am going to start with gym. :) Sister Herrmann really likes the 4th of July. Ha ha she was dressed in red white and blue and waving flags... for gym. Ha ha But we played this really cool game called Kuu? Something like that anyway. You get to throw wooden sticks at wooden blocks to knock them down. Sister Herrmann and I were a team against some other Sisters and we won! Ha ha Anyway, for the 4th of July most of our district (pretty much everyone but Sister Peck) wore red white and blue. So that was fun. Oh and Elder Williams was throwing a fit all day because he is from Australia. He told me there is only one other country who loves themselves more than we do, and its New Zealand. Ha ha But they had a special devotional that night. When we walked in, it was funny because they had up on the projector screens a slide that said, "Elders can take off their suit coats, or not, its a free country." And then they had some musical numbers and a talk about how the atonement is what really allows us to be free. After we watched 17 Miracles. I felt bad because I can't prevent myself from laughing when Savannah Lewis' character dies, there are just too many inside jokes about it in the 5th ward young womens. I can't take it seriously. But after the movie the MTC President announced "Sister Carrie Underwood" had just finished singing. (Ha ha, Sister...) That we could all go out and get a dove ice cream bar and if we stand at the edge of the gate we can watch the fireworks! So we got to watch the fireworks from the stadium of fire. The view from the MTC isn't half bad. I really love fireworks. It was weird because when he made the announcement it was 10:15 and my body was tired and ready to be in bed. Ha ha even though I can't fall asleep on time or early my body still can't handle being out past 10:30.

Saturday came and we were all exhausted from being out late for the 4th. So that was probably fun for our teachers. Ha ha We had TRC again and Sister Brown and I were able to teach 2 girls that were actual converts from Thailand! They spoke really fast but through the spirit we were able to understand nearly everything they said.

Sunday we had Josh Wright give the devotional. He is a really good pianist. He mostly just played but between each song he gave a couple sentences of good advice and a story. The song I liked best that he played was the clair de lune blended with How Great Thou Art. It was beautiful.

Funny quote of the week, well it needs a bit of background information. In the devotional on Tuesday, Elder Snow mentioned the only thing he remembered learning from his 5 day stay at the mission home was that he needed to use a shoe horn everyday so he wouldn't get blisters on his fingers. He was going to Germany and that is the only thing he got out of it... Anyway, Tuesday nights we have district devotional review. Sister Mamea asked what a shoe horn was. Elder Luker wins for funniest quote of the week (hopefully its still funny if you weren't there...), "You know those guys at the airport directing the planes with those sticks? That's what a shoe horn does for your foot."

Today we cleaned the temple. It was really cool. We got to help clean the chandeliers which they only do once a year. And only a few districts get to do it so it was a very rare opportunity. So really we only cleaned a couple of the chandeliers from the sealing rooms and moved a lot of chairs. And then we spied on the guys carving the carpet in the celestial room for about a minute. Its crazy how much they do to the temple when they clean it. They completely redo a bunch of the carpet and stuff. I wish them luck to finishing before they reopen next Monday!

Also, Sister Zoller wanted me to let you know, I let her borrow some digestzen and it worked! She said she is super grateful!

Also thanks Grandma for the letter! It sounds like you are having an eventful summer so far! Ha ha Happy anniversary to you and grandpa! Love you guys!

Well I love you all and now I am off to go clean the temple!

-Sister Nethercott

My birth country's flag!

Sister Brown's shot

Showing off our bandaids from our shots

Just hangin' out

Stadium of Fire fireworks

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!

Taught Sister Brown and Herrmann how to do no heat curls. Ha ha

Team Thai Thighs!

Circle skirts!

Friday Night food party!

Me & Sister Brown

"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.

 We had to move seats... this is all our books we had to move with us... ha ha

Class time

Sister Alley's whiteboard study

My Thai vocabulary study page. Look how long the word is for "devotional".

                       My crazy comp roomies. :)

Sister Alley putting out the stash for our Friday night food parties.
                  

                             Me & Sister Mamea

                        My Comp Sister Brown & I

Most of the Sisters (sorry you're cut off Sister Pitts)

 Me, Sister Brown, & Elder Curtis (aka: The one who laughs like the Riddler from the old Batman tv shows)

                                Chow time!

                             MTC Thailand group

          Me & Sister Maddie Holt (who's going to Korea!)