Sawaat dii kha khrobkhrua khong sidtee.... That
was probably really bad grammar in Thai, but bad grammar in English and bad
spelling will most likely will be all throughout this email. Thai is messing
with my spelling in English, big THAI-me. The other day I was writing the word
'prophet' and instead I wrote "Phrophet" because with Thai romanticized
put an h after p's and k's a lot of the time to change the sound of it.... Also
the keyboards here are not that great and that adds to the bad spelling and
such. Sorry...
This week has gone faster than the first week! It has also had more challenges and headaches,
but I usually end the day feeling happy. :) Last Wednesday my district (or group) of
missionaries were asked to host the new missionaries coming to the MTC. I hosted 4 girls! The first girl was from Brazil and didn't
understand that I would look after her bags while she went and got her name tag
and a language evaluation. She was very
sweet though and I took her to get her books and showed her where her residency
is and drop her things off and then I took her to her class. I did that 3 more times! We get to host again tomorrow and I am very
excited! I even got calluses from all of
the suitcases I pulled AROUND!
The MTC has 2 brand new buildings that just barely
opened a few days ago and I got to go inside one of them yesterday and it was
beautiful, like walking into a temple! There
will be about 800 more missionaries coming to the MTC in the next month, so
these buildings are needed!
There is this cute Thai girl who is going to Australia
on her mission and whenever she sees any of us Thai missionaries she smiles and
waves and teaches us a new word! Suu suu
is what she usually says which means "fighting" or "keep
fighting" "keep going!"
We have another Thai teacher too! Sister Peck is very nice and can always tell
when we are stressed and helps us remember our purpose. Everyday I am reminded
that learning Thai is not my purpose, bringing others closer to Christ is my
purpose, speaking Thai is just a tool to help. So I'm trying not to focus on
the language, but on my relationship with Phraphoophencaw l3? Phrayeesukhrid
(God and Jesus Christ). Without their help, I will not be an effective
missionary, nor would I be able to learn this language. Suu suu!
There is so much to study, read, and memorize. We have 3 pages of words and phrases called
the basic core of Thai that we are trying to work on learning, along with
memorizing our missionary purpose in Thai, and the baptismal invitation, how to
pray in Thai, and then we also just barely started to learn the script and need
to know those. Yes, I am feeling a little stressed. But I learned yesterday
that carrying a load of stress, or a load of whatever, gives me the spiritual
traction to keep moving forward. It helps me to progress. If I didn't have this
load, I wouldn't be where I am right now. It helps me learn faster, AND it
forces me to rely on God more when I don't have everything memorized, or I don’t
know what I am going to say when I walk into a lesson. I have definitely felt of God's love and
tender mercies towards me. I also learned yesterday that I can still be happy
even if I have a heavy load :) Go watch the 'Spiritual Traction" Mormon
message :)
Yesterday we had TRC which stands for teaching
resource center. We just go and talk
with returned missionaries who speak the language and we visit with them and
leave a spiritual message. It's similar
to visiting teaching almost... but I can't understand a lot of it ha ha! We talked with 2 different people. The first
one (Aaron) was nice and would help explain in other words if we didn't
understand what he was saying. We shared
a message about the Book of Mormon, and if you have a question, pray
(suadccnwccn) and then read and read and read the Book of Mormon, and then you
will find the answer! That was the gist
of the lesson, but instead it was in very not great Thai! Ha ha.
Our second TRC was with Sister Khamuunoy (not
the right spelling, she's a native Thai, but her name means 'Little Zion').
She's one of our part time teachers and so we taught her the same lesson as Aaron,
but it went very differently! As soon as
we began taking about the Book of Mormon and how it can help her with any
problem that she may face or answer any question she might have, she started
crying and the spirit of was very strong. It felt khwamsuuk (happy)! Sister
Bingham also began crying when she bore her testimony and Sister K. kept
smiling and crying and said that we helped her a lot. She shared her favourite
scripture with us (after we read 2 Nephi 32:3-5 with her) and it was the
scripture that helped her decide to serve a mission about 4-5 years ago (she's
from Thailand and served on Temple Square). Teaching her for TRC was a tender
mercy because it reminded me of why I am on a mission, to help others feel of
God's love and to help them draw unto Christ. :)
On Sunday Sis. B and I taught the relief
society lesson about Agency, and the Fall of Adam and Eve. The branch president's wife said that we did
wonderful and that it was a beautiful lesson (all we did really was read 2
Nephi 2 and then asked the other Sisters questions. The District president's
wife (I think) at the end made a comment that I really liked. She said that
each of us has left our own "Garden of Eden" and that this transition
must be very hard for us, like how Adam and Eve had to leave the Garden of
Eden. It's hard and challenging, but
they did it so that they could have something better that's what sacrifice
means. I left my Eden (home) to serve
others and to help bless God's children. I just liked the parallel between me
and Eve. (Even though her decision was much more difficult than mine :)
Well, that's about it for this week! I hope you
are all doing well and are happy!
Love
Sister Peterson
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