Long Beach - Christmas

So this week was a little different than usual, since we had Christmas. I had a New Missionary Training this week. It was really nice not only to get some new information, but to see some of my Thai speaking friends. It was nice to see that they had all adjusted to mission life and were enjoying their companions and the mission.

For Christmas Eve and Christmas we went caroling around our Zone with all of our Zone members. It was really nice, and a good way to wish people a Merry Christmas. We mostly sang for investigators and members. We did go and sing to some random houses and hand out some pass along cards. Christmas day was really fun. We still had studies at 8, so we went over to some of the other Elders’ apartment at like 5 in the morning, to open presents. It was really cool to spend time with other Elders and enjoy Christmas. After our study time, we got to go Skype home. it was really nice to be able to Skype home and talk to family. After Skyping, we got to play Basketball at the Church for a while. It was fun to play Basketball. We got to have dinner at one of the Tongan member’s home. It was very good and we left very full and with plates they wanted us to take home for later. All of the Tongan members are really nice.

We had an interesting few days after Christmas. So, on Saturday, we were really successful all day and had like 6 lessons and committed all of those people to come to church. We also met a few new people we might start teaching. It was a really nice day, especially for right after a bunch of days where we had a lot of things going on. Then yesterday, on Sunday, was not the best day. None of the people that said they would come, came. We had like 8 people that said they would come throughout the week, that didn't. It was really depressing and then to add to it Elder Oniki and I, along with the other YSA Elders, had a special musical number for Sacrament Meeting where we were singing. We were planning on singing along with the piano but there was a bunch of stuff by the piano so we didn't use it. We started singing without a piano and then someone messed up and one of the Elders we were singing with started laughing, that caused another Elder to start laughing, then he slammed his hymnbook and walked off the stage, then the other elder that laughed first walked off the stage. That left me and one other Elder up there and we slowly just died off as well, not really knowing what to do from there. It was pretty bad. Then later in the night we had an appointment that went off and back on like three different times and changed locations twice. We had to get keys and stuff to have it at the church and had to call a member that was supposed to teach her with us several times canceling and rescheduling, and in the end we didn't have a lesson. 

 

I thought it was interesting at how different days can be on your mission, and how you just need to make the best of whatever happens each day.

Elder Cheney

ฉะนั้น, หากเจ้ามีความปรารถนาจะรับใช้พระผู้เป็นเจ้า เจ้าก็ได้รับเรียกมายังงาน

่่้เซนื

Long Beach - Straight into Compton

Long Beach - Straight into Compton

So, I have been in the field for almost a whole week now. It seems crazy. My new companion is Elder Oniki. He is from West Jordan. He is pretty cool. We are in Compton. I thought it would be sketchier here, but it isn't too bad, and most of the people are pretty nice to missionaries. It feels really nice to just be able to go around and talk to people, because it has been all I could think about for the last nine weeks. I have been enjoying teaching, we are always working. I always kind of wondered what missionaries do with all their time because it doesn't seem like much is happening from a members point of view. So much time goes into talking to people and meeting with less actives or recent converts.

So it ends up that I have to drive here. My companion lost his driver’s license, so I had to get driving privileges on the first day. About half of the missionaries in our mission drive and the other half bike. They set that up so the people with cars can pick up the bike missionaries to take them to district meetings and things of that nature. It felt really weird to drive after being confined to the same square 1/2 mile for nine weeks. I am not sure how much I like driving here, everyone drives really fast and recklessly; also U turns are legal; that's weird.

We are actually the missionaries over two wards, the YSA here and the Tongan ward. Church yesterday was interesting because everyone was speaking Tongan the whole time and I didn't really understand anything from it. It was like the first day in the MTC all over again. My Companion is learning little bits of Tongan in our language study time.

My Thai seems to becoming along just fine. I was really worried but it seems I can still speak just fine. This morning I taught like a thirty minute lesson to Elder Oniki in Thai, he just nodded for the whole thing. I was surprised I still remembered all the words I wanted to use. Hopefully, I will get lots of time to practice and keep it up.

The weather here is warm enough for my Thailand attire, for the most part. Our house gets really cold because it doesn't have any heat, but I can just wrap up in a blanket when I am there. 

I am really enjoying being out in the field. It seems weird that I will be here for such a short time and that I probably won’t see any of my fellow missionaries here, after I go to Thailand.

I am excited for Christmas on Friday. The Christmas season is a really nice time to talk to people and it seems like a lot more people want to hear more at more this time of year. I really can’t compare to any other time of year but it seems like lots of people are willing to talk, even if it is just for a few seconds, about the real meaning of Christmas.

Well, hope everything is still going well,

Elder Cheney

--

ฉะนั้น, หากเจ้ามีความปรารถนาจะรับใช้พระผู้เป็นเจ้า เจ้าก็ได้รับเรียกมายังงาน

่่้เซนื

MTC - Week 9

MTC – Week 9

So I had an interesting turn of events this week in my mission experience.  Last week at this time I thought I would be on a plane to Thailand right now. So on Thursday, we get on the computer and Elder Brander is on his missionary portal, I am looking over at his screen and I notice that the picture of our mission president had changed to some other people. I point this out and we read the description and come to find out that it is a picture of the Long Beach mission president. We already had some idea that we might not get our visa's. We go and check my portal and find the same picture of the Long Beach mission president and wife. We have every one in our district check their portal and everyone in our district had gotten reassigned. There are three in our district going to Long Beach, California, 5 going to Modesto, California and 4 going to Atlanta, Georgia. This was shocking because, beforehand, we had heard that a few of us might not get our visas but it ended up being all of us. 

I am pretty excited for Long Beach. It will be very cool to have two missions, we should only be reassigned for about one transfer (6 weeks) and possibly less if our mission president wants us as soon as our visa's come. I think we will end up being there for however long the Lord wants us there. All of the people going to Modesto left early this morning, they ended up staying up late because they didn't really have time to pack. It seems really empty here without all of them. The rest of us leave early tomorrow morning. It has been kind of nice to have a P-day right before we leave, I have already done all my packing and now I just can relax till dinner.

The week has been pretty nice. Last Saturday we had a testimony meeting in our class and said good bye to all of our teachers. The people still left here will get to have another class after dinner with one of them. 

None of us will probably get to speak much Thai in our reassignments but we might be surprised at what comes up. I am worried about not speaking everyday and only getting an hour to keep my language up. I have a feeling it will all work out fine and I will be OK at speaking Thai still when I get to Thailand. 

The Long Beach Mission is the smallest mission, I am pretty sure. It only has about 20 square kilometers of land and then two islands that I am not even sure there are missionaries on. It will be interesting to see what happens.

Yesterday we sang a nice arrangement of How Great Thou Art with the Cantonese district during Sacrament Meeting. It included both groups singing in English and in the mission language. I think it turned out well. We also had the BYU Mens’ Choir come yesterday for our devotional. They are very good.

Well, it will be an interesting next week going out into the field I am excited to see what Heavenly Father has prepared for me in Long Beach.

ฉะนั้น, หากเจ้ามีความปรารถนาจะรับใช้พระผู้เป็นเจ้า เจ้าก็ได้รับเรียกมายังงาน

่่้เซนื

MTC – Week 8

We are all really excited about going.

Our Skype lesson last Monday seemed to go better then the first one. We have another one today so I am excited to see how we do with another week of Thai under our belt.

We had our nun Thais come in on Wednesday. They seem to be learning the language well, and doing well at the MTC. We got to carry out a fun tradition with them. The tradition is that after their first lesson in Thai you show them this video from

 LDS.org https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2012-06-1870-school-bus?lang=eng

It is really funny because we have everyone talk before about how this video changed their perspective on life and helped them through the first week. Some of the people are even able to tear up to make it believable. In reality, the video is a joke that really doesn't make you feel better about anything. Afterward, we shared a good spiritual thought to help them out.

The Christmas devotional last night was great. We got to watch that instead of our regularly scheduled Sunday devotional. It does feel weird that it is Christmas time. Even though they have Christmas lights around the MTC, it does not feel like the same exposure as the outside world. I am not sure what exactly Christmas will be like in Thailand. Our teachers say it is only really celebrated in big cities and it is very commercialized. It has been fun singing all the Christmas songs in our Thai hymnbook. I remember when I heard Silent Night in Thai before I left and it just sound like random noises but now I am able to sing the song and know, for the most part, what it is saying.

Reading Thai is getting way better every day. I remember when we first started learning how to speak script and I took me two weeks to read through 1st Nephi chapter one. I haven’t really tried just reading through chapters like that in a while, but I think it would take me about twice as long as normal, but that is still a huge upgrade.

Not that much else has been going on. I might not be able to write next week because of our flight to Thailand but I am sure I will have tons to write about the week after that.

Elder Cheney

MTC - Week 7

MTC - Week 7

Thanksgiving this week was really fun. I was not that excited for it because I thought it would be lame and sad. I ended up having a really good time. Our district was ushering for all the devotionals on Thanksgiving, so we got to see some behind the scenes stuff. Dallin H Oaks came to speak to us for our morning devotional on Thanksgiving, all of our district got to say hi and stuff to him before the devotional. He brought a lot of his family with him and they played some music for us, it was really good. He talked about being thankful and talked about some of the history of Thanksgiving.

Afterward, since my companion, Elder Brandner, got interviewed by the church news, he makes it into this article.

 Here is the link to the article. https://www.lds.org/church/news/givethanks-in-all-things-elder-oaks-tells-missionaries-on-thanksgiving?lang=eng

After that first devotional we had lunch, which they ended up making our dinner. They had turkey and potatoes and everything for us. It was very good, but it was not as good as my mother’s Thanksgiving dinner. Either way I was extremely grateful for all the cafeteria workers that spent time away from their family to cook lunch for us. They just had us pack up a sack dinner right after lunch so the cafeteria workers could go home. 

After lunch we had another devotional where they explained our service project for the day. They had someone from the Church Welfare speak and the head of Feeding Children Everywhere speak. It was interesting hearing the head of the Feeding Children Everywhere speak because he was not LDS. After we heard them speak we started doing our service project. They had us preparing meals for children in need throughout Utah. We only did about two hours of service but we prepared about 300,000 meals which we were informed is a new MTC record. It was fun to do service on Thanksgiving because, as I would help assemble each meal, I could think about how fortunate I am and how much I have. 

In the evening they had a Gratitude devotional where they just showed some short Thanksgiving videos and then had Elders and Sisters share some of their talents. It was really nice to watch and be grateful for everything. Overall, it was a really good Thanksgiving and I was happy that I got one last good Thanksgiving before leaving the States.

Teaching the member in Thailand via Skype was really interesting. It seemed to me that we could communicate somewhat decently in conversation, but there were a bunch of times that we would ask a question and they would just start going way too fast and bunched together to understand. We would usually just say something like "good" afterward to make it look like we understood. I feel pretty confident now in the language though. I can understand almost anything now if it isn't said to fast, I just don't know how to reply to some things yet. We do another Skype lesson tonight so hopefully that goes well.

My ankle is doing better. I still haven't been cleared to do gym time yet, but I think I should be able to have it in a few days. I have been really missing running every day. The last week, at least they have let me do ten minutes a day on the exercise bike. They let me do that earlier because there is no impact on the bike, I guess.

Yesterday, I got called as the online coordinator for our branch. I don't really do much except teach all the new missionaries how to use the computers here and tell them all the rules and stuff. Speaking of new missionaries our nun Thais come on Wednesday (nun means younger in Thai) I am really excited to have them around. Apparently in the new group there is someone who already speaks Thai. It will be fun to have him around to help settle arguments about vocab and tones.

It seems weird that our district is only two weeks away from leaving now. We should get our flight plans this Wednesday I think we will be leaving really early in the morning, and go through either Japan or Hong Kong.

Well not much else everything is really good here and it is nice to think about how close our district is to leaving.

Elder Cheney

Here are two links to our service project:

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865642547/MTC-missionaries-spend-Thanksgiving-preparing-350000-meal-packs.html

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865591538/MTC-missionaries-find-charity-service-in-lentils-and-rice-on-Thanksgiving-Day.html?pg=all#FlP5250f5fF7gtBu.01

MTC- Week 6

MTC- Week 6

Another week down at the MTC, it seems like the weeks are really going by fast now. I like how fast they are going by because it means I am getting that much closer to going to Thailand. On the other hand, a month and a half of my mission is already over. I am enjoying it so much I really get bummed out by the thought of my mission going by.

My ankle is doing better now. I was able to get off of crutches on Thursday. I am pretty much walking normally now but I still don't get any gym time, because I have to do physical therapy stuff to strengthen my ankle. I do miss getting my gym time everyday but I think I should only have to do physical therapy stuff till Friday. Then I can go back to running.

Later today we are going to Skype a native Thai speaker in Thailand to teach a lesson. I am excited to do that because that will be the real deal of what it is like in Thailand. I think it is cool that we get to do that. I feel the last few weeks here my companion and I have really been improving our speaking ability.

It is weird that Thanksgiving is this week since I really don't have any concept of the outside world at the moment. I only realized Thanksgiving was coming up, earlier this week. I am not sure exactly what is going to be going on but they passed out a Thanksgiving schedule yesterday and it looks like we will be preparing food for people in need and we will have a General Authority come to speak to us. I don't think we really get a good dinner, it sounds like we will get a sack dinner. It is a little disappointing, but it is good. That way all the cafeteria workers can go home for Thanksgiving. I am kind of glad I am in the MTC for Thanksgiving, because there wouldn't be any type of Thanksgiving in Thailand. It will be nice to serve people on Thanksgiving; we can remember how fortunate we are as we serve those who are not. It will also be a nice break from the same daily schedule. 

It’s weird to think about how close I am from going to Thailand; we are 3 weeks away now from going I think it will go by pretty fast.

We had some good devotionals this last week. On Tuesday, we got to hear from Kim B Clack he talked about: Obedience, Work hard, Feel the Spirit, and Love the people. He also gave a few stories about missionaries out in the field who just got there but where able to speak to investigators in ways their companion couldn't because of how they were following those things. He was super cool to listen to and makes me think about how I just need to focus on living obediently and do the other stuff and I don't need to worry about the language as much.

Elder Cheney

MTC - Week 5

MTC – Week 5

This week has definitely been interesting, I have still been having a good time learning Thai. Our class is making great strides and we are only half way through the MTC. We are doing well and don't really have problems teaching lessons or answering questions in Thai anymore. Most of the time now, if our lessons don't go well, it is because we were not teaching what the investigator needed to hear. I can’t wait until our district gets to go to Thailand.

We had our half way point at the MTC was last Thursday; it is weird to think that one month of my mission is already over. It makes me a little sad because it seems like it is already going by fast.

We got to host new missionaries again last Wednesday. It was still enjoyable but barely any new missionaries came in. I suppose the summer rush is pretty much over. The MTC has way less people here then when I first got here. I think it is down to about half the amount of people maybe a little more.

So, funny story, I was playing volleyball last Friday after my run and while I was playing, I jumped up really high to spike the ball. So anyway, when I came down I landed on top of Elder Brandner's foot and I sprained my ankle pretty bad. They have had me on crutches since then. I shouldn't have to be on them for too much longer but I won’t be able to do any activities on it for a while. I really just hope I can get back to running at least because that isn't as bad as basketball or anything. I was planning on challenging the mile record last Saturday.

Being on crutches is really a hassle. It takes longer to walk everywhere and you can’t really carry anything in your hands. I do feel like I am getting a good workout on everything except the bad leg. Elder Brandner and my other roommates have been helping me out a lot though. One of my roommates; Elder Jeffery, sprained his ankle recently and has been telling me that I probably can’t do anything more than walking for about a month. I really hope my injury is not quite as lasting. I feel like I have to explain what happened to people about 20 times a day. Good thing it is a short story. 

Later that Friday our language teacher, Brother Tirrel, gave a really good spiritual thought about devoting ourselves more to the gospel and that as we do this, our language will follow. It was really good.  My favorite part of the spiritual thought was when we were reading in 3rd Nephi chapter 5. There is some really good stuff in there and I encourage all to read it.

Earlier in the week I auditioned to be in a small choir that will sing to general authorities and other people early in December. I haven't found out if I made it yet but the other members of my district that auditioned said I did a really good job. I am not sure if they are saying that to be nice or if I actually did well. Auditioning was a little stressful. It felt like I was on American Idol singing in front of the MTC presidency's wives.

Not much else happened this week, I am still doing well,

Elder Cheney     

Week 4

Week 4

I have had another great week here at the MTC. This week we made some goals to help us learn Thai faster, and so far they are helping out a lot. We are reading Thai script more now, and we sing hymns and stuff like that from Thai script. I have been enjoying learning how to read that and have started trying to read the Book of Mormon in Thai.

Earlier in the week I had the opportunity to give a blessing. It was for one of the Laotian speaking Elders (the Laotian Elders are stateside). He broke a piece of bone off under his knee cap and has to get surgery that would have a two or three month recovery. I was not that close to him or anything but I ended up giving the blessing which ended up being a surprise for me. I felt the spirit really strongly while giving it and it was awesome. He had to go home the next day because of the surgery, but I think he will recover fine and get back to the MTC soon. There were only 2 Laotian speaking Elders here and now there is only one, so the Elder that stayed here now hangs out with the Thai District all the time.  Elder Brandner and I hang out with him a lot. He doesn’t have an assigned companion so he just makes sure he is with someone. Laotian is really close to Thai so we can talk to each other and understand a lot of stuff. Laos is in our mission so I am hoping I get to spend some time there during my mission and be able to say I am fluent in 3 languages. 

Our Phii(older) Thais left this morning. It was nice to have them around because we could ask them questions about the language and questions about the MTC. I think we will be fine without them. We all are doing well at the language and can usually ask each other and someone will know the answer.

Our district got to host new missionaries on Wednesday. I enjoyed it a lot and had fun showing new people around the MTC. I hosted one elder who was a convert to the church and had only been a member for 16 months. He was from Peru, and the two sisters that taught him in Peru were able to pick him up from the airport and drop him off at the MTC. It was pretty cool to see how someone I teach might be led to go on a mission. We get to host new missionaries again this Wednesday. 

I am still doing well here; I have still been trying to break the mile record. It can be hard to get a good time on the track because the track isn't big and a lot of people run on it. I still think I can break the record because I have 5 more weeks to train for it. I have also been playing a lot of volleyball during my gym time. It is a lot of fun to play here. There is a guy who has the same gym time as us that played on the University of Hawaii volleyball team. He is really good and just looks like he isn't trying most of the time.

We had Richard J. Maynes come to speak to us on Tuesday he talked about making the efforts we need to, to be good missionaries. He told a story about when he was at a gas station and he saw some missionaries and he waved to them. The missionaries waved back and nothing else happened. He explained that as he was standing there he realized that the missionaries should be using an opportunity like that to meet new people. So he said he asked them how they were doing and the missionaries said ‘good’ and didn't pursue any further conversation. This made me think about how I need to work to become more social when I meet new people. It made me want to work so that I will be able to talk to new people easier so that I don't miss out on any opportunities to teach. 

Overall, I had a good spiritually uplifting week and I hope I can continue to have these experiences.

I hope everything is still going well.

Elder Cheney

MTC- Week 3

I am still having a great time at the MTC. We had Neil L Anderson come this Tuesday to our devotional. It was awesome to hear from an Apostle, and I hope we have the opportunity to hear from another Apostle while we are still here. We got to sing "More Holiness Give Me" at that devotional. It was awesome, and the devotional was broadcast to all the MTC's around the world. 

Daniel left for New Mexico this morning. I got to talk to him for a while during our temple walk yesterday. I am happy he is going out, but now I don't have any friends from home here at the MTC. It isn't really that bad because I have 11 new friends in my district. I really do like everyone in my district. 

I had to teach the priesthood lesson yesterday. It wasn't too bad. Because we have Mongolian, Laotian, Cambodian, Cantonese, and Vietnamese speakers in our zone I didn't have to teach my lesson in Thai. I was really nervous about giving my lesson, but I only ended up getting through about half of the stuff I had prepared. I was teaching about faith in Jesus Christ. I found a lot of good articles about the topic and when it got to the time that I was teaching my lesson I could feel the spirit really strong. I got a few compliments on my lesson, so I felt pretty good about it. 

Last night, we ended up not having choir practice because it was Fast Sunday. I was a little disappointed. Choir is one of the things I look forward to most each week. It is a good time when you don't have to worry too much about learning the language. 

I feel my Thai is still coming along well. We had an English fast on Wednesday where we didn't speak any English all day. I couldn't tell how much it really helped because, normally, when you don't know a word or something you just ask. But when you are English fasting you pretty much don't say what you want to say. Our district was thinking we will try to just use more SYL (speak your language). It gets confusing though when people rush through a sentence half in Thai, half in English. Teachers have been telling us if we know how to say a word in Thai, there is no reason to say that word in English. I have been trying to do that as much as possible, but it is really easy to slip back into English. 

Halloween was kind of funny here at the MTC. I was dressed up as Elder Cecil. It was funny because that morning they did a Teaching Thing where we just thought the RM's were playing the role of themselves which was nice because you don't have to try to explain a lot of stuff with them, you just give a spiritual message and they share their thoughts about it. Well anyway, I was dressed up as Elder Cecil and when I went to introduce myself, I got confused for a second and had to explain what was going on. Later in the evening, a few of the elders from our district went trick or treating around our residence. We had pretty good results for the rooms not being prepared for trick or treaters.

I had to stop eating peppers every night because they were giving me some stomach problems. I still am trying to eat spicier foods so it doesn't get bad once I get to Thailand. 

Our Phii Thai's leave in a week. (Phii means older in Thai) It is nice to have them around to help us learn, but I guess in a few more weeks we will be the Phii Thai's

I am still doing great, I love being here, It is nice to be in a place where everyone has the same beliefs. I am still pretty anxious to go to Thailand, but I don't think I would make it in Thailand if I went there now, so it makes me appreciate all the time I have here to learn.

Elder Cheney

MTC Week 2

MTC Week 2

I am still well and learning tons everyday here.  This Wednesday we are doing an English fast where for the whole day we won't speak English. I think it will test our Thai abilities, but I think we should be able to go the whole day we have been told that we are way ahead of schedule in learning the language. The Thai missionaries that have been here for six weeks didn't do an English fast until like week 5. I can't wait to be able to speak fully fluent. 

I have seen Elder Rice and Sister Anderson a lot more than I saw Elder Waters, They are on the same schedule as me so I have gym time and meal times at the same time as them. I have gone running with Elder Rice one of the mornings during Gym time. I am currently trying to break the MTC's mile run record. It is a 4:28 and I have run a 4:45 so far since being here. I figure I will be able to break the record because I have lots of time to get in good shape. The altitude hurt my lungs at first when I was running here, but I am starting to get used to it.

In our residence recently we have been trying to adjust to the spice level of Thailand. We have been eating these chilies at night before we go to bed; they are the real deal when it comes to spicy. As you know I am terrible at handling spicy foods and the first time I ate one I really thought I was dying. I was crying for about 15 minutes straight! And was sweating really hard. I have gotten much better since then I can eat one without crying anymore. Last night I ate 2 peppers without crying. I felt my mouth could have handled another pepper but my stomach didn’t like the spicy food.

So I decided to be in the MTC choir. Apparently you don't get a nap time anymore if you are not in the choir. I have been having fun with it and yesterday at choir practice the director told us we needed to sing extra good this Tuesday because the devotional at the MTC would be broadcast to all the other MTC's around the world. I think that means we are going to be privileged from hearing from an apostle or a member of the first presidency! It would be really nice to get to hear from one of them.

I have been busy teaching Last Friday was our last day teaching our first investigator. Now he is our teacher during the second half of the day. This Tuesday we are going to start teaching our new investigator. I am really excited to start off with an investigator that we haven't messed up teaching so much. It is cool because the way they do the investigators is we are actually teaching RMs but they portray a role of someone they taught on their mission. So they ask questions the real investigator asked them. They are really good at staying in character as well. They only speak Thai no matter what. Our first investigator told us he was trying to learn to speak English but he only knew how to say "Cool dude". We joked with him about that like after he would keep a commitment we would tell him cool dude. We are starting to read the characters now. Up until this point we have reading what is called Romanized Thai which is basically Thai words spelled out in English letters. It still does not read the same though the different letters make different sounds then they do in English. I was thinking earlier today about right after I got my mission call and Brother Watson put some Romanized Thai up on the board and it was really confusing and nobody could pronounce any of the words on the board. I could do really well at reading through that now. It’s really going to be nice once I can read the characters because when we teach investigators we always have to have them read the scriptures for us because we don't know how to read. It was funny because during one of our lessons I had our investigator read a scripture and when he was done he asked what this word means. When I didn't understand the word he said he pointed to it in the scripture and there was no way I could read it out of there because of the characters so we had to write down the word and figure it out and talk to him about it during our next lesson. 

It’s good to have another teacher for our classes because a variety of ways of teaching helps us understand better then the same thing. Our new teacher will speak English every once in awhile when he is teaching gospel stuff because he wants to make sure we understand more of that. It is honestly weird to hear English sometimes because so much of my day is spent in Thai. My companion keeps telling me to repeat things again because I accidentally said them in Thai instead of English. The gift of tongues is so real here at the MTC. I was thinking back to when I got my mission call and after I had this feeling that I would be able to learn the language and so far that has been spot on for everyone in my district. I am really enjoying my time here. It feels like time is starting to go now. The first week felt like each day was three days.

I hope all is well at home, I was sad to hear about Brother Sandrich. I am glad I was able to serve him the Sacrament a few times at his home before I left. I hope you guys have a good week.

Elder Cheney  

MTC Week One

First of all I have been having so much fun here at the MTC this week. It is just Filled with the spirit. About 30 minutes after arriving at the MTC I had my first language class. It was weird the teacher did not speak a single word of English the whole entire three hour class, but it is pretty effective. I feel I learned so much each class. Not only are our language classes in Thai our gospel classes are all in Thai unless we are meeting with multiple districts. There are 12 people in my district. We are all going to Thailand. There is also a district that has been here 5 weeks that is learning Thai. It is really cool to hear them because they sound almost fluent in Thai and go whole days without speaking English. The best part about having them around is they help us study and learn. I can't wait till I can speak like they can. On the third day here they had us teach a lesson in Thai to an investigator ( not a real investigator just a Thai speaking member playing a role). Me and my companion thought the lesson would only be 5 minutes long but it ended up being a full 40 minute lesson. The lesson went terrible we had long stretches of silence while me and my companion were going through our notes to try and figure out what he was saying or trying to answer his question. We knew we had to teach him first thing the next morning as well. Both me and my companion were worried about preparing for what seemed like the impossible. we prayed often for help in what we needed to know and the next day when we had our lesson we gave about a 30 minute lesson where we only had to go through our notes once to find the answer. We were able to understand his questions and he was able to understand our butchered version of the Thai language. After me and my companion left the room we were so excited, it felt like somebody just gave me a million dollars. I learned from this that if i want to be successful I need to both study my hardest and trust in the spirit. Later today we will teach him again and we can not take some of out notes with us. 

My companion, Elder Brandner, is awesome! I get along with him really well. He is from Utah, the rest of my district is really cool as well. I really like how it is setup because it seems the people that have picked up on more Thai end up helping the others just by using the words they know but not everyone may know. I think this helps us stay really close in our knowledge of Thai.

Yesterday I finally saw Haven, I was really worried I would not see him for another two years which would be frustrating because i knew he was really close by. He bore his testimony to me in Spanish and he seems to really have a grasp on the language. It sounded like something that he made up as he went not a memorized thing. I said goodbye because I don't think I will see him till I get back home. 

We had a amazing devotional yesterday. The speakers were Chad Lewis and Tysom Hill. After the meeting i bumped into Tysom as he was getting escorted out. i was able to shake his hand wish him good luck with his foot injury. After the devotional they showed a talk by David A Bednar entitled Characters of Christ it was a truly amazing video. It really brought the spirit and I really just wanted to watch it again. It plays every week at the building I was watching it in. so Ithink I might go back soon to watch it again.

I am happy very happy here. The food isn't the best but it is OK. Most of my district just want to leave here and go to Thailand now but I feel fine being here for the moment. i am still excited to go to Thailand, but I am learning so much everyday that I am happy. 

Hope all is well, Elder Cheney