Saturday, April 21, 2012
Week 6
WOW! I cannot believe it has already been 6 weeks!!! I have made it past my half way point!!! YAY!!! Just over a month left here in the MTC! CRAZY! But this week has probably been one of the best weeks yet!! It started off w/ last tuesdays devotional when i sat in front of Elder David Archuleta and we had a good 10 minute convo before devo started... we are basically best friends now, except for he just left for Chile yesterday. But apparently he was actually supposed to go to Thailand last year but then it flooded, so he knew a little bit of Thai so that was fun! But ya he was really nice and i saw him here and there the rest of the week so it was fun! haha
HAPPY SONKRANG!!! (not sure if i spelled that right) But it is the Thai New Year's this week! So basically from what i hear the entire country shuts down for about 3 days and it's just one big huge water fight all 3 days!!! I'm sad I don't get to experience it this year, but next year i can't wait!! They actually let the missionaries join in for one day (b/c no one will let you teach them anyways b/c they are always celebrating) But i am soooo excited!!
This week I also feel like i am really starting to understand the language and am speaking pretty well. Our district has made some goals to speak only in Thai for 2 full days!! It will be crazy if we can do it, we do half days pretty well, but a full day is gonna be tough!!
Sunday was SOOO GOOODD!! Our devotional was amazing!! Our first speaker was President Brown (President of the MTC) then we had a musical Number by Elder Archuleta and he sang The Spirit of God, and did sooo good!! I wasn't really a fan before, but i can now say I am a David Archuleta fan! hahaha Then our main speaker was M. Russell Ballard! So that makes it 3 apostles that have come out of the 6 weeks I've been here!! Oaks, Packer and Ballard so far! Hopefully we'll get a few more!! At this next sunday's devotional I have been asked to say the closing prayer, so I'm hoping someone big comes! hahaha
Tomorrow is going to be fun b/c we get a new Thai District!! WOO! there are 9 coming in, 7 Elders and 2 Sisters and I am soo excited!! I already know one of the sisters b/c she was in my ward last year so that will be fun! And the other sister is from Kaysville, but i don't know her.
Another bit of exciting news happened this morning, when the entire girls residence hall was abruptly awoken by the fire alarm at 1:30 a.m.! Still not sure why the fire alarm went off, hopefully they will let us know but ya that put a damper on the morning, we were stuck in the gym for about 30 minutes, so needless to say, I didn't get very much sleep last night!
Other than that, not a whole lot! I ran into Jordan Farley this week, i guess he's like the training resource person over the new english district in our zone, so when we were over there welcoming them he came in to talk to them too! RANDOM!!
As for my feet mom, I guess they think it is just fallen arches not plantar fasciatis so i don't think i will need the scraping thing or whatever, but i could use some inserts for my shoes, b/c the selection here is very limited!
Well that is about it! Hope all is well at home! Love you all!
Love, Sister Itri
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Week 5
Another good week at the MTC! This week was easter so on Sunday we had a combined sacrament meeting with the entire MTC and President Packer spoke! It was a really good meeting and probably the biggest sacrament meeting i will ever attend! But it was awesome to have a general authority come! Then that night for devotional BYU mens chorus sang and it was just a music devotional, which was kind of nice after general conference and have Boyd K. Pakcer we got kind of a sit back and relax type night. But overall a great Easter Sunday!
Ok so i hope this isn't confusing but this is what happened w/ our mission recently... The current mission president will be released in July, so they called a new mission president who has been preparing to go but this last week his wife got a brain aneurism so they are no longer able to serve, so they just called another new mission president who was previously assigned to serve in North Carolina and is now going to be our Mission President in Thailand, but he served his mission in Japan so he doesn't even know Thai! CRAZY!!! It is so crazy how the Lord works, but I know that this new mission president is called of God and will do great! I'm not sure what his name is yet (our teacher forgot) but i'm sure you can look up more about him in chruch news or whatever. But i am super excited to meet our new MP and I know it was through inspiration he was called!
Other news, our Phii-thais left for Thailand yesterday!! It was pretty sad to see them go! There were 16 of them and now it's just the 7 in my district left of Thai speakers! It's pretty weird! But we will get another district next week i believe so that will be fun! Also I was just called as Coordinating Sister so i will now have a few more responsibilites here and be in charge of all the sisters in our zone. Right now its just me and my comp, but tomorrow we get 4 more sisters going on English speaking, and i think we are getting 2 new sisters for Thailand next week but i'm not positve yet, but i am excited! It was funny when i was getting called, the branch presidency got a little confused and 1st i was called as music cooridinator and then my comp came back and was like i just got called as music cooridinator! So we both were really confused and had to ask the branch presidency if we were both suppose to have the same calling, and obviously that was not the case, so i then i got called as coordinating sister! haha
This week we are starting to teach "investigators" twice a day! AHH! so during one class session we teach our teachers, and the other we will teach other members of our district! It is a little overwhelming but it will be good! I think it really is the most important part b/c i have learned sooo much about how to teach from these activities! We also taught in the TRC last week and that was fun! One group I taught, my friend's sister was one of the members we taught so it was fun to see her and the other was a sister that was native from thailand and it was sooo good to hear a real thai accent, so i know what i'm getting myself into! haha
I am slowly but surely learning how to read thai! It is crazy thought b/c there are so many different ways to spell and say things that sometimes i get so lost, also they dont' put any spaces in between words, so sometimes i don't know where one word ends and the next one starts, but it's kind of fun trying to figure it all out! My vocab is also coming along pretty well! I think i pretty much have the basic church words down and can bear my testimony so that's good! Our teachers have been riding me and my comp pretty hard though, we aren't allowed to bring any dictionary or any notes into our lessons with investigators, which has been pretty difficult (and someone annoying b/c they let the elders bring them) but they said we were relying on it too much so they told us no! In the end i think it has helped us but at first i was super overwhelmed!
But ya that is about it this week! I hope all is going well with everyone at home! I love you all!
Also, Jon and Dani: How's the baby?!? Do you know if it's a boy or girl yet!?!? I want to know right away!!! :) (dearelder works great!!! :) ) Also Jason told me you were able to sell my phone so thank you!! did you just put the money in my account or how did that work? Oh and have you found a house yet or what's going on with that!? Well hope all is well! Love you!
Love,
Sister Itri
Ok so i hope this isn't confusing but this is what happened w/ our mission recently... The current mission president will be released in July, so they called a new mission president who has been preparing to go but this last week his wife got a brain aneurism so they are no longer able to serve, so they just called another new mission president who was previously assigned to serve in North Carolina and is now going to be our Mission President in Thailand, but he served his mission in Japan so he doesn't even know Thai! CRAZY!!! It is so crazy how the Lord works, but I know that this new mission president is called of God and will do great! I'm not sure what his name is yet (our teacher forgot) but i'm sure you can look up more about him in chruch news or whatever. But i am super excited to meet our new MP and I know it was through inspiration he was called!
Other news, our Phii-thais left for Thailand yesterday!! It was pretty sad to see them go! There were 16 of them and now it's just the 7 in my district left of Thai speakers! It's pretty weird! But we will get another district next week i believe so that will be fun! Also I was just called as Coordinating Sister so i will now have a few more responsibilites here and be in charge of all the sisters in our zone. Right now its just me and my comp, but tomorrow we get 4 more sisters going on English speaking, and i think we are getting 2 new sisters for Thailand next week but i'm not positve yet, but i am excited! It was funny when i was getting called, the branch presidency got a little confused and 1st i was called as music cooridinator and then my comp came back and was like i just got called as music cooridinator! So we both were really confused and had to ask the branch presidency if we were both suppose to have the same calling, and obviously that was not the case, so i then i got called as coordinating sister! haha
This week we are starting to teach "investigators" twice a day! AHH! so during one class session we teach our teachers, and the other we will teach other members of our district! It is a little overwhelming but it will be good! I think it really is the most important part b/c i have learned sooo much about how to teach from these activities! We also taught in the TRC last week and that was fun! One group I taught, my friend's sister was one of the members we taught so it was fun to see her and the other was a sister that was native from thailand and it was sooo good to hear a real thai accent, so i know what i'm getting myself into! haha
I am slowly but surely learning how to read thai! It is crazy thought b/c there are so many different ways to spell and say things that sometimes i get so lost, also they dont' put any spaces in between words, so sometimes i don't know where one word ends and the next one starts, but it's kind of fun trying to figure it all out! My vocab is also coming along pretty well! I think i pretty much have the basic church words down and can bear my testimony so that's good! Our teachers have been riding me and my comp pretty hard though, we aren't allowed to bring any dictionary or any notes into our lessons with investigators, which has been pretty difficult (and someone annoying b/c they let the elders bring them) but they said we were relying on it too much so they told us no! In the end i think it has helped us but at first i was super overwhelmed!
But ya that is about it this week! I hope all is going well with everyone at home! I love you all!
Also, Jon and Dani: How's the baby?!? Do you know if it's a boy or girl yet!?!? I want to know right away!!! :) (dearelder works great!!! :) ) Also Jason told me you were able to sell my phone so thank you!! did you just put the money in my account or how did that work? Oh and have you found a house yet or what's going on with that!? Well hope all is well! Love you!
Love,
Sister Itri
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
One Month
WOW!! I cannot believe it has been a month already!! It has gone by sooo sloow but soooo fast at the same time!! It's crazy!! But it has been fun! This last weekend was awesome! Conference was AMAZING!! I don't think i have every payed this close attention to it before, but i seriously loved it! I especially loved Uchtorfs quote about the bumper sticker, "Don't judge me b/c I sin differently than you" so funny but so true! what a good message that was i thought. But all of the talks were just awesome!! Then sunday night for our fireside Vai Sikahema spoke!! It was super fun! He talked about how you can incorporate missionary work into your carreer and talked about like mormon night at the Phillies games and Wednesday's child wanting a "forever family" and how when he pitched that to the producers they were amazed at how perfect it fit and stuff, but it was a lot of fun! It was nice to get a little touch of home as he talked about a couple other things in Philly too! But ya, overall such a great weekend! I feel like i probably lost a little bit of my thai b/c we didn't have to speak it at all during conference but other than that awesome!
This morning was interesting though, we went to the temple and did sealings as a district, but we got split up so 1/2 our district was in one room and the other half in the other and right at the beginning we hear this big thud and the room shook and stuff and we were all super confused, come to find out later that that "thud" was actually one of the elders in my district passing out in the sealing room next to us!! Crazy right?!! he's ok, but he did cut open his chin, got 7 stitches and chipped some teeth, poor kid! But he has just laughed it off and they are all just joking about it now so that's good! But that added a bit of excitement to our district for the week i think!
This week i also found out i might have either plantar fasciatus or fallen arches, not sure which but i have been going to these workout classes and my feet have started to really hurt during them, so i talked to the trainers and that's what they told me! They gave me a couple things to do to hopefully help it so we'll see! (one of the things was to roll it out on this little spikey ball thing, so if you could send me one that would be great! the have one here, but i want to have one just in case. It kind of looks like those blue ball things that you had for the dryer, you know what i'm talking about?? so if you could be on the lookout for something like that that would be awesome!!)
But other than that it was a pretty mellow week! Our "p-thais" (the district that came in before us) are starting to get ready to leave which is super weird! They leave next tuesday for Thailand!! i'm somewhat jealous, but soo excited for them! they are great and im positive they only send the best of the best to thailand ;) haha
Jason and Julia came to lunch on Friday so I got a little bit of an update on things so that was fun! But ya, good week! I love having the opportunity to listen to our prophet and other general authorities! What a great thing we have in this church to be able to recieve guidance through modern revelation!!! I know that Thomas S. Monson is our true and living prophet today and the he leads and directs this chruch with the authority of God! General conference is awesome and i can't wait for this sunday to hear another apostle speak to us!
Well, I hope everything is going well at home! Love you all!
Love, Sister Itri
This morning was interesting though, we went to the temple and did sealings as a district, but we got split up so 1/2 our district was in one room and the other half in the other and right at the beginning we hear this big thud and the room shook and stuff and we were all super confused, come to find out later that that "thud" was actually one of the elders in my district passing out in the sealing room next to us!! Crazy right?!! he's ok, but he did cut open his chin, got 7 stitches and chipped some teeth, poor kid! But he has just laughed it off and they are all just joking about it now so that's good! But that added a bit of excitement to our district for the week i think!
This week i also found out i might have either plantar fasciatus or fallen arches, not sure which but i have been going to these workout classes and my feet have started to really hurt during them, so i talked to the trainers and that's what they told me! They gave me a couple things to do to hopefully help it so we'll see! (one of the things was to roll it out on this little spikey ball thing, so if you could send me one that would be great! the have one here, but i want to have one just in case. It kind of looks like those blue ball things that you had for the dryer, you know what i'm talking about?? so if you could be on the lookout for something like that that would be awesome!!)
But other than that it was a pretty mellow week! Our "p-thais" (the district that came in before us) are starting to get ready to leave which is super weird! They leave next tuesday for Thailand!! i'm somewhat jealous, but soo excited for them! they are great and im positive they only send the best of the best to thailand ;) haha
Jason and Julia came to lunch on Friday so I got a little bit of an update on things so that was fun! But ya, good week! I love having the opportunity to listen to our prophet and other general authorities! What a great thing we have in this church to be able to recieve guidance through modern revelation!!! I know that Thomas S. Monson is our true and living prophet today and the he leads and directs this chruch with the authority of God! General conference is awesome and i can't wait for this sunday to hear another apostle speak to us!
Well, I hope everything is going well at home! Love you all!
Love, Sister Itri
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