Khnyom, khnyom, khnyom!

Sisters Hughes, Phelps and Slaugh

Ok, the title of this email is from a song that one of our Cambodians wrote during her stay in the MTC. Her name is Sister Hartley. She's a riot. The song goes as follows:

Khnyom, khnyom, khnyom!

Khnyom, sraline, khnyom!

Khnyom sa-at, khnyom cha-lat

Khnyom, la-ah ching gay!

Translation:

I, I, I

I love my self,

I am pretty, I am smart.

I am the best.

It's pretty great. Now I know how to say all the really important stuff in Cambodian, so nobody should worry about that.

This has been a very silly week. It started out with me seeing my friend Janna (from my human development class, remember? I love that lady) here at the MTC (she's a teacher) and I literally screamed when I saw her. It was so good to give her a hug! Haha, so much for "quiet dignity..." Whoops :)

I have also been discovering that the Missionary Training Center is a gold mine of 18- and 19-year-old boy antics. I mean, I knew this...I knew it would be an adventure. But I am having so much fun observing all of the awesome things that go down. Like this week, one Elder Clawson, a Cambodian, got all the elders to snort jello at dinner. Yeah, that happened. Or when Elders Passey and Astle wrote a Thai word on the board and snickered the whole time...I found out later it was the verb for "to elegantly break wind." I had to laugh at that one. Last night we had a 40 minute conversation about tie trading and the rankings of different types of ties here at the MTC. Seriously?! It was a FORTY MINUTE CONVERSATION. You kinda run out of things to talk about after a while...haha.

Our schedule at the MTC is the same for 8 weeks in a row. I don't have it in front of me...but on Mondays there are 6 hours of class, on Tuesdays there are 3 with a devotional in the evenings, Wednesday is P-Day (preparation day) with a 3 hour evening class, and then Thursday thru Saturday we have 6 hours of class. And then there is Sunday with no class; we watch Music and the Spoken Word as sisters, have Relief Society, Sacrament Meeting, a walk to the temple, and then we have a Devotional around 7. When we have class varies from day to day, but it's the same each week. If that made sense :)

So speaking of Music and the Spoken Word, this week was so good. There were so many video clips of nature...I forgot how much I missed the outside world! Seriously, people, GET OUTSIDE!! To anyone who is coming to the MTC...SPEND TIME OUTSIDE. We have gym time every day, but it's just not the same. I realized that I haven't seen the stars the entire time I've been here. I miss that. It's funny the things you miss in the MTC. So far for me, it's Google and the stars. AND MUSIC. That too. We don’t to listen to background music here, not even church-y music. I don't know why, but once we get into the field that will change.

Anyway, so what I really wanted to say about Music and the Spoken Word...I FOUND CONAN / DINO GUY IN THE TABERNACLE CHOIR!! It took me three Sundays, but I finally found him. I laughed so hard...I pointed him out to my companions and now they look for him all the time, too! I kept thinking of General Conference with the Morgans and the Navas and it just made me so happy happy happy :)

Another fun thing that happened this week...during our lesson with Nike, we realized that we wanted to share a scripture with him. We decided to share something about Jesus being the "light and the life of the world" in Alma 38:9. I told him the wrong scripture. I asked him to read Alma 39:9. I'll let you look that one up. Needless to say, we all laughed really hard, even Nike (who is really just Brother Phan, our teacher). It was super awkward hahaha.

Oh, here is a fun thing I found out. So Sister Tilley found out in a somewhat unfortunate manner during one of her lessons the difference between Khaa and Kh>> (remember the backwards C?). Anyway. She related said story to us: She was teaching her investigator how to pray, and she said that you "khaa God," or "thank God." Or so she thought. She asked the investigator to try it, even though he seemed confused. It turns out she was asking him to "kill God." And we all realized that in our prayers we have been trying to kill God instead of thank him for our many blessings. Whoops-a-tulip! He knows what we were trying to say :)

So now that the silly stuff is out of the way, let's move on to the spiritual stuff I've learned this week.

The Book of Mormon. It is so incredibly personal! I have always known that reading the Book of Mormon is the best way to come to know Christ as our Savior and Redeemer. It is the best way that we can gain a testimony of Him. But the Book of Mormon is a way for the gospel and for Christ to reach people individually. It allows for each of us to have our very own experience with Christ as our Savior. It allows us to come to know Him on our own, for ourselves. The spirit will testify to each of us in a different way that He is the Son of God, and that He is our Redeemer, if we approach reading it with faith and commitment. It reaches people one by one, which is exactly how the Savior wants us to come to know Him. I love that. And THAT is why the Book of Mormon is the most powerful resource in the conversion process, for our investigators and for ourselves.

We've had some pretty big changes in our zone this week. All of our Pii Thais left for Thailand on Monday! I'm so excited and happy for them. Yesterday, almost all of our Cambodians left. In their district of 12, 11 left—10 for Cambodia, and 1 for Long Beach. Sister McQuivey, who is going to Tacoma, Washington, is the only one who is still here due to transfer dates in her mission. So guess who has a new companion? Yep! That's right! I do!

Yesterday is a long story. Yesterday morning, Sisters Phelps, Slaugh, and I were able to teach Pii Tom about baptism, and he accepted the invitation to be baptized. WHAT?! I AM SO HAPPY FOR HIM. Definitely the high of the day. During our personal study, poor Sister Stack had a pretty severe athsma attack. Sister du Plessis asked the elders to give her a blessing before they called medical services, and it was so awesome how all four of them literally LEAPED out of their chairs to give her a blessing in the hallways where she was. We stayed in our classroom for about 40 minutes while the medical peeps took care of her and took her off to the health clinic for breathing treatment. After the elders came back in, we had a district prayer all together (minus Sisters Stack and du Plessis, obviously), and it was the sweetest thing ever. Yesterday was a huge bonding day for our district, and Sister Stack is back in the saddle, never fear. Blessings work!

After class, we helped all of our Pii Cambodians move their stuff out of their rooms so they could board the bus to the airport. We also moved all of Sister McQuivey's stuff into our room. I moved to the top bunk, which is actually an adventure because of where the bed is, there isn't really a way to climb up onto it, so I just kind of climb on a chair and on the cupboards and fling myself onto the bed. We don't have a ladder. We can't do things the easy way in the MTC :) Anyway, watching the Cambodians drive away was such a happy, happy thing. I am seriously so excited for them!! But watching Sister McQuivey standing there, crying, was the hardest thing in the entire world. My heart broke into so many millions of little baby pieces for that girl. Her entire district of 9 weeks just left, and she gets to stay back for a week with the Thais. It was amazing how the Spirit told me exactly what to do to comfort her. I don't know her very well at all, but I just knew that she needed someone to hold her hand, and so I stood there with her, holding her hand, as the bus drove off. We held hands a lot yesterday. It was nice.

Our devotional last night was so awesome. Mom and dad, if you get the chance, could you maybe try to find a copy of it? It was Elder Marcus B. Nash of the Seventy. He gave the most amazing talk on the Doctrine of Christ. It was exactly what I needed to hear, and when it was over, I just wanted to listen to it on repeat about 27 more times because it was seriously that amazing. The final advice he gave us was, "Don't hold anything back from the Lord." I thought that was so cool. After devotionals on Tuesdays, we have a little testimony meeting with our district and someone from our branch presidency. And I realized in that meeting that if we don't hold anything back from the Lord, He won't hold anything back from us. He will bless us with everything we need to be the best missionaries we can be. It was the most amazing realization ever.

I LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!!!! I hope you guys get my point :)

Until next Wednesday!

Sister Syd

QUOTES OF THE WEEK

"I can't even stick to a goal for ONE dayTHERE'SJELLOWHERE." —Sister Hartley, at dinner when she saw Elder Clawson with a plate of Jello

Each night we have a prayer as a district before we go back to our residences. Elder Whitney, of the Cambodians, was with us so we asked him to pray in Khmer. So he did. Somehow, though, Elder Hill missed the memo and in the middle of Elder Whitney's prayer, he said super loud, "WHAT?!" And we all busted up, even Elder Whitney. It was great.

"I'm not Asian, I'm 6'4''!" -Elder Black, who is half Thai

Sister Stack: "My power animal is like a mix between a pig and a t-rex."

Elder Hill: "How did those two meet?"

Elder Astle: "That's a funny joke. We'll laugh about that later."

Me: "Dang. Modesty is a really long word." I then proceeded to struggle saying "khwaamsuphaabriabr>>y" for about 30 seconds until Elder Passey said, "Ain't nobody got time for that!"

Me: "Kaanfuunfuu. That sounds like a good name for a bouncy house rental place, right?"

Elder Astle: "You know, those are the kind of thoughts that will make you a lot of money one day."

  

And that was my week in quotes :)

CARINE IS HERE! Hurrah! It's a beautiful thing.
The girl with the red hair is Sister Ralls, she is Dr. and Jennie Hurlbut's neice! 

Our two Thai districts with a Sister who is from Thailand! Wahoo!

Some of our district at the temple this morning. The girl with the Red shirt is Sister McQuivey! She will be my companion until Tuesday morning when she leaves for Washington! 

The sisters going to Thailand with the Thai Sister (who's last name I can't pronounce because it is 21398472358971204783 letters long) 

This is L Tom Perry. There is a vowel in Thai that requires his smile to make the right sound.
If that makes sense. Ha ha. So we hung those up :) 

HOLY CLOUDS! utah lake has never been so beautiful 

Look at this car!

Sister Tilley and I

“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 :)

Accidentally coordinated-matchy.

Script card—consonants

Script card—vowels 

New best friend—the script card

Sisters phelps and slaugh mopping and drying.

Hi, my name is Sister Hughes and I will be playing the part of “Missionary” from “Thai for Missionaries.”

So one of the things that made me smile really big this week is in the ENORMOUS stack of books we got (not a joke, we all got about 15 pounds of language and gospel study books...), one of my books is called "Thai for Missionaries." It made me think of you guys and smile. Ok. Now on to the long-awaited email!!

 

Sawadii khaa khrabkhrua khong sitdee!!

(Hello to my family!!)

 

This has been the longest, most exhausting, and definitely one of the best weeks of my life. On Wednesday after mom dropped me off, I was escorted to my residence, and then off to my class where our teacher spoke only Thai. That was exciting. And wonderfully confusing :)

 

HOLY COW THANK YOU FOR ALL THE BIRTHDAY LOVE!!! :) I have never felt the birthday love like I have this year!! I have been teased mercilessly about the copious amounts of mail I got on our second day in the MTC, haha. Every time Elder Astle (in my district) checks the mail and I have something, he says "Sister Hugh, more fan mail for you..." Haha. By the way, DEARELDERS: Awesome invention. That's all :)

 

I have gotten a lot of questions about my "companion." Well folks, I'm in a trio! My companions are Sister Phelps and Sister Slaugh. Sister Phelps is from Murrietta, CA (San Diego) and is about 16 feet tall with big green eyes and an infectious laugh. Just kidding, she's only about 6 feet tall. But still. Sister Slaugh is from New Jersey, "about 45 minutes away from NYC on a good day, but it's never a good day," just finished her freshman year at BYU and loves to be sarcastic. We get along really well :) Both of my companions are 19! Turns out I'm kind of an old lady! But that's ok with me.

 

We have two classes of 9 missionaries each learning Thai. In my class are my trio (obviously), Sisters Stack and Du Plessis, Elders Astle and Passey, and Elders Hill and Winsor. Pretty much it's one big spiritual party in there. Fun fact, in Thai there is no V sound, so Elder Astle hails from Las Wegas, Newada. It gets me every single time. But really, everyone in our class is awesome. So far, I can say my name, where I am from, that I am a missionary, pray, and bear my testimony. Last night I prayed in all Thai without notes for the first time. It was really ugly, broken up Thai, but it was awesome. Last night at our Tuesday night devotional, we heard from Elder and Sister Gavarret. I loved Elder Gavarret's message, but what really stood out to me was what Sister Gavarret said. She is originally from Paraguay (maybe Uruguay?) so English is her second language. She bore her testimony in English first, then went on to bear it in Portugese, Spanish, and then French. She told us to just keep on working on our languages. They will come. "You need only believe."

 

So that's what I'm doing! I'm believing. And I'm definitely seeing the results. (See aforementioned story about praying in Thai.) Also, here is another story about Thai. On our second day here, we taught our first investigator. My trio and I are teaching a guy named Sam, who is from Thailand. (Side note: Sam is not a real investigator haha, he's just an employee here at the MTC. But he really is from Thailand, and he only speaks to us in Thai, obviously.) We taught a really choppy lesson and basically just read a script that we had written out because we didn't know how to say anything really. BUT THEN...on Friday, we taught him again. This time, we really focused on following the spirit and talking to HIM, not just teaching a lesson. It was amazing what we have been learning about him. He talks back to us only in Thai, and somehow I am able to understand what he's saying to us. We taught him how to pray, we taught him about God and about the Holy Ghost, and this next lesson we are teaching tonight is about Jesus Christ. In our lesson on Monday, we talked to Sam about families. I had an outline of things that I wanted to say to him about families, but suddenly I knew that my outline was not what he needed to hear. I'm sure my companions thought I was CRAZY as I sat on the floor (Thai people sit on the floor, criss cross applesauce, good thing my skirts are all so long), flipping through one of our 17,000 dictionaries. It was awesome how I was able to tell him what he needed to hear without having prepared for it and without really knowing what I was saying. And he understood me. Okay maybe it wasn't me that he understood...but still. :) Also, I PRAY SO MUCH IT'S CRAZY. I love it!! Seriously, I feel like I'm saying a prayer every 2 seconds.

 

So a little bit about the MTC. It's covered in tulips. EVERYWHERE. Good thing tulips and daisies are my favorite flowers. It makes me so happy :)  The food is fine...it's pretty much like any other cafeteria out there. I'm kinda sick of it already...haha. Mostly I eat a lot of cereal and salads and pineapple and honeydew. Every Wednesday and Sunday there is ice cream from the BYU creamery, which makes me just about the happiest girl in the whole wide world. And I drink SO MUCH WATER. I don't know what is happening to me. I lived in Utah for 4 months before coming to the MTC, but for some reason, I can't stay hydrated! And my skin has never been so dry. It's way weird. I just keep lathering on the lotion. I know you were curious about that so there you go.

 

During our Gym time, our entire zone likes to go out to the field by the temple to play soccer or volleyball. It's super fun. In our zone, we have the Thais, the Cambodians, the Hmongs, and the Vietnamese. The sisters all play soccer together and when we do, we usually play against the Spanish sisters. We call ourselves Asian Persuasian and we try REALLY HARD to not get competitive with the Hermanas. Haha. Volleyball is awesome, too, because you can play in the sand without your shoes on. :) I have proven myself quite the worthy opponent on both fields. Note sarcasm. Haha.

 

On Sunday we had mission conference with the MTC presidency. One of our opening hymns was Go Forth with Faith, and a tear or 6 definitely slipped out. I told the elders I had allergies. They didn't believe me :) Thank you, Katie and Suzanne. It's my new favorite hymn. :)

 

So on Monday in class, we really concentrated on talking about what our purpose is as missionaries and coming unto Christ. Brother Shipley asked us to each think about when it was that we came to know the Savior personally, and to find a scripture that illustrates to us who He is. I instantly thought of so many stories about Christ, and all of the things I wanted to say about Him, but I finally settled on 3 Nephi 11: 14-15. In these verses, Christ invites the Nephites to come to him individually, and feel the scars in his hands and feet and side. He stood there while each person came to Him. There must have been THOUSANDS of people in that crowd. And they came to him, one by one. And I thought about how Christ loves each and every one of us. Personally. And He teaches us one by one. I then thought about how He wants us all to come unto Him. He loves us and wants each of us to hear of His gospel. But He isn't here to teach each one of us individually. That's where the missionaries come in. It is so humbling to think that the Son of God, who has done more for me than I can even comprehend, needs me to help Him. It seems so backwards, but it is so amazing! I love knowing that :) And knowing that for some reason, I'm needed in Thailand. AH! So exciting. Only 8 more weeks until I ship out. Not that I'm counting down or anything... :)

 

So ask me more questions!! What do you want to hear about? I'll do my best to answer. I LOVE YOU ALL SO SO SO MUCH.

 

Have a great week, keep sending me DearElders! I think now that I have a set schedule, I'll be able to find a little more time to write back to you.

 

Love,

Sister Hughes

- - - - - -

Sister Sydney Rose Hughes

MTC Mailbox #59

THAI-BAN 0701

2005 N 900 E

Provo, UT 84604