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