serving in the land of smiles: “I’ve never felt fatter than when I woke up with crumbs in my bed.”

Yes, that is one of the quotes of the past week, said by our lovely Sister Tilley. We just eat cookies in our beds sometimes, no big deal. It seems like every package we get is filled with cookies!! I am in no way complaining about this.

SAWADII KHAA KHR>>BKHRUA!! :)

(>> is supposed to be backwards Cs so just go with it. Haha

This past week has been really great. I feel a lot more settled into the MTC and life as an MTC missionary. I say MTC missionary because I know how drastically things will change once I get into Thailand. Are you all ready for this week's edition of the weekly epistle?! Here goes.

I've been thinking a lot this week about first impressions. There is an elder in my district that I decided was really quiet, and I just thought we wouldn't have anything to say to each other. Of course I was proven wrong, and I came to realize that he is one of the most deeply silly people I have ever met. So maybe that's not first impressions, but more of me making decisions about people before actually getting to know them. Anyway, whatever it is, it really got me thinking a lot about how I want people to see me when I meet them. I want people to see me as a missionary and to see me as a representative of Jesus Christ. Later in the week, we learned about that in class. It's cool how that experience prepared me for class. If any of that even made any sense at all.

So probably my favorite memory from the MTC so far. On Thursday night in class (we have class from 6-9 pm), I was so frustrated with Thai. Whatever it was we were learning about script was just DRIVING me INSANE. Even though I know I am being blessed, I was just frustrated with myself. Our teachers keep trying to reassure us, and fun fact; we are the fastest learning group of missionaries to ever learn Thai! But still. So I was sitting in class, silently being frustrated. I prayed to let me have some relief from the stress I was feeling, and not even five minutes later, our new teacher Brother Phan (remember Sam from the previous email? He's now our teacher!) was trying to help us pronounce a vowel. He was trying to say "apple" with a Boston accent and for whatever reason, it struck me as the funniest thing in the whole entire world. I kid you not, I had tears streaming down my cheeks for about 15 minutes. It was the BEST relief EVER. I then remembered mama's advice to me before I left, to laugh often :) It's so true that laughter is the best medicine and it cures just about anything.

So on Sunday, we had the coolest experience in the WORLD. In Relief Society, all the sister missionaries meet together and someone comes to talk to us. This week..guess who it was?!

JANICE KAPP PERRY. RIGHT?! I was super excited. Anyway, she gave a wonderful talk, and she had us all sing a medley of "A Child's Prayer," "I Love to See the Temple," "I Belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints," "I'm Trying to be Like Jesus, "Army of Helaman," and "Love is Spoken here." It was so beautiful! And if that wasn't enough of a spiritual boost...she then had us sing a song that she had just recently written for a new CD for Sister missionaries. It was called "The Sisters of Zion" and it is to the tune of "As Sisters in Zion," WE WERE THE FIRST PEOPLE TO EVER SING THE SONG!! I looked around me while we were singing it and I didn't see one dry eye. It was so amazing. One of my favorite lines (and one of the only lines I can remember is "the angels of heaven are walking beside us." It's so true. :)

Then at Lunch, I was sitting, eating and talking to one of the Hmong-speaking elders in my zone. And suddenly someone behind me said, "Ghraham Canyon." And I turned to the elder and said, "I'm sorry, I have to go," and I literally sprinted (just kidding I speed-walked) to the ice cream bar and got myself some Graham Canyon ice cream. DELICIOUS. I've missed that stuff. In fact, they also had Earnestly Chocolate...so maybe I got two bowls. Don't judge me. I don't eat a whole lot else here, it's all pretty nasty, so I figured it was ok :)

One of the coolest things that happened this week was actually reading something in Thai. Like in script. My teacher asked me to look up a word in the English-Thai dictionary that we have and do you know what?! I COULD READ IT and I didn't even have to think about it twice!!!!!!!! It was SO COOL.

So now we have two new investigators, Pii Tom and Nike. Yesterday morning, Sisters Slaugh, Phelps, and I taught Pii Tom for the first time. It was the first lesson that we have taught that went really poorly. I just had a really hard time understanding Pii Tom, and I felt like I couldn't answer any of the questions he had well enough, and it was just a total bummer. I was really disappointed. BUT! The Lord always comes through! In personal study, we all were studying about Christ so that later, we could teach Nike. And I came to the conclusion that the Lord loves me in spite of all of my shortcomings and mistakes. And He loves his children. He won't let my mistakes get in the way of someone learning about the gospel and coming unto Christ. I love knowing that. It just means that I need to work harder, and everything will be just fine :)

THEN GUESS WHAT HAPPENED?! Last night at our Tuesday night devotional, ELDER NELSON CAME TO SPEAK TO US!!! He gave such an amazing talk about how we need to lose ourselves in the work, and how we need to be happy! "For goodness sakes, we are that we might have joy!" :) He also said, "Obedience brings blessings. But exact obedience brings miracles." It reminded me about what Scott said about how there is nothing sacred about 6:30 am wake-up time schedules, the sacredness is in our willingness to follow rules. Thanks, Scott :) Elder Nelson’s wife also spoke to us and she assured us that our ancestors are with us. She said that there are always people who have gone on who will walk with us and help us. She asked us to pray to be led to people who's ancestors are praying that they will receive the gospel. I've never thought about it like that before, but I thought it was really cool.

This week is our last full week with all of the people in our zone. They are all shipping off to their missions (the Hmong speakers are going all across the states, the Cambodians to Cambodia, and the Pii (older) Thais to Thailand). Soon it will just be the 18 of us defending our table that we have claimed for the South East Asians in the cafeteria until the next group of South East Asians come in. We've heard rumors that on June 12th, there are going to be 48 new Thais coming in. I'm sorry. Let me repeat that with the proper excitement. THERE ARE GOING TO BE FORTY-EIGHT NEW THAIS COMING IN (if the rumor is true) SO PRAY THAT IT'S TRUE BECAUSE THAT NUMBER IS UNREAL! Even if they're not all Thai speaking, there is still going to be a CRAZY RAD number of noong (young) Thais coming in. And then we'll be the pii Thais! (older Thais). It's super exciting.

I'll leave you all with a scripture that Theresa Starr sent me in a DearElder! Seriously, that woman is the bomb. I love that she wrote to me! Will you make sure she reads this? :) She told me to look up Omni 1:26. Do it, you'll be so happy you did. :) It's exactly why I'm out here. I'm so excited to go to THAILAND!! Only 6 1/2 more weeks :)

I LOVE YOU ALL!!! SO MUCH!!!

Duay khwamrag (with love),

Sister Syd

PS. We're now only allowed to write letters on P-Days. Not even at night when we're back in our residence halls! Shoot. So if people don't hear from me for very long periods of time, it's not because I am ignoring them or anything...there just honestly is zero time to write back! But know that I want everyone to know that I love them and I'm so grateful for their letters!!

Noteworthy Quotes of the Week:

"Bagles in my EYES, I couldn't believe it!" -Sister Melton, going to Cambodia

"I've never spoken this much Thai in my life." -Sister Phelps

"Why do I have a fork???" -Elder Hill, who pulled a fork out of his pocket in class

"I'm just going to repeat everything our teacher says and I'll keep doing that in Thailand. And if I'm socially weird out there, I'll just figure it out later." -Elder Hill

FUN FACTS ABOUT THAI!!

So girls always refer to themselves in Third Person.

There are multiple ways to say "easy." Such as:

-"ngay - ngay"

-"ngoo - ngoo - bla - bla" (which translates to snake - snake - fish - fish) or

-"Gloo-ay gloo-ay" (banana - banana)

The word for pirate is joan-salat, which translates to salad thief. That's my favorite one so far :)

People often mess up tones and instead of saying "I would like to share a message" they say, "I would like to share some rice."

I said on accident, "I satellite signal that the Book of Mormon is the word of God" instead of "I promise that the Book of Mormon is the word of God."

It never ceases to be entertaining :)