Oh my goodness!!! I don't even know where to begin!! Reading your
letters just made me cry :) You know! As we expected... I've cried
every day at some point I'm pretty sure! It's just hard when you have
to bear your testimony... because EVERYONE cries through their
testimony. Well... at least I do! You know! :)
Where to even begin... life is totally a time warp at
the MTC. My goodness. Each day has at least a week crammed into it...
so in some ways I feel like I should be close to leaving the MTC. But
alas... I have 8 more... slow difficult weeks ahead of me! They didn't
lie when they said the MTC was going to be a difficult experience! In
my mind I think I'd imagined that we'd have a teacher all of the time...
and we'd all be focused, serious, and spiritual 24/7. So it's been
kinda crazy readjusting to the reality of 18 and 19 year old kids stuck
in a room, often on their own! Our district is kinda crazy as I
mentioned in my letter home, but it is also full of so many good
spirits. Oh my goodness! I am amazed by their testimonies, and also
sometimes frustrated by the way they get distracted... or talk about
movies... or whatnot. It's probably been a bit of a lesson in humility
though! I dunno :)
It's so hard to summarize 7 weeks... but I'm going to try :)
So...
so far... we have taught 4 lessons, all completely in Thai! It's
incredible how much the Lord has blessed us... because in reality this
"7 weeks" has actually been 7 days. It's crazy to think that we
communicate anything at all in Thai! You would never expect this much
improvement from someone learning a language in just normal life...
but... even though it's frustrating and difficult... we have learned so
much! We pray in Thai (though... I pray in Thai-glish a lot. Because I
get annoyed if I can't tell Heavenly Father all of my thoughts, but I
don't wanna skip out on the Thai). We bear our testimonies in Thai, we
can have you read your scriptures in Thai! It's insane! They've sped
up the learning hear quite a bit from what I understand... they used to
teach the script (the lovely alphabet :)) to the missionaries... I think
at week 6! But they just kept introducing it earlier, and now we've
already begun to learn some of the characters! Amazzzzing. And I can
pronounce (roughly I'm sure) a lot of the craziness that we saw in that
book that Jessica sent home! You should look at it... it's super weird
:). Sometimes I look at it... and then I think "Wait a second. This
looks CRAZY! I can't read this!!" but then I remember I can! Haha...
I'm sorry. This letter sounds insane :) but hopefully it'll give you a
taste of the craziness that you won't see for a year and a half! It'll
be even more fun when Thai is really what I speak most of the day. The
language is kind of caveman-ish. From what I understand you don't
conjugate verbs. He/she is the same thing... you know :) So in that
way we have it SO much easier than people that have to deal with the
subjunctive blah blah blah tense. :) I dunno family!! Wow! :)
Um... some cool experiences... we've watched 2
different devotionals... as well as an old video of a talk that Elder
Bednar gave (which you should watch... I'd actually seen it before
somehow... but it's worth watching twice!), "The Character of Christ"
Wowza! That sums up a lot of the feelings that have been in my heart
this week. It's kind of interesting... I feel like I've been wrestling
with giving up my old self... "Rachel" for "Sister Croft" even going to
the temple today was like... man I wish I could come here whenever I
want! But... I'm trying with all of my heart to turn outward and
surrender those desires to the Lord... like I talked about before! I
think my desires right now are best summed up by the scripture... the
natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and
will be forever and ever unless, he yields to the enticings of the Holy
Spirit, and putteth off the natural man, and becometh a saint the
atonement of Christ, our Lord" that might not be right... that was from
my flawed memory :) but. I'm just trying so hard to be like Savior
wants me to be :) as well as trying not to be frustrated, because each
day has been difficult and frustrating. But... also. Each day,
Heavenly Father has provided many tender mercies, and things to
strengthen me and remind me of why I'm here! I'm itching to get into
the field... even though it's just been 1 week. Because in some ways I
think it'll be easier to remember that when I'm looking into the faces
of God's children, who need to hear about the Savior! But also... the
members of my district are God's children, and my teachers, and I am
God's child! And so... I should have plenty of reminder here as well...
I dunno! Heavenly Father's hand is in the work here though... I'm
learning Thai! That seems like evidence enough :) The gospel is SO
sweet and SO true though!!! :) And I'm sure that each day for awhile
I'll continue to say to myself "man this is hard... do I want to do
this?" And then Heavenly Father will sweetly remind me that this is His
work. And this is me giving myself to Him! And I'll continue in
Faith! I'm already learning so much more to rely on the Atonement!
Thank you for your sweet letters and notes! It was
really great to hear from each of you! And I'm sure I'll treasure
them. Plus it makes me happy just to think about you! Wow this is a
long email! Hopefully y'all make it through it :) Oh. And my companion
Sister Ference is super sweet :) we're learning how to plan in unity!
IT's harder than I thought it would be... but we're working on it :)
I wish I could write in backwards ee's and all of the
weird symbols that we use to know how to pronounce things. But just
know (this is my attempt at writing what this sounds like!)
Siter rak khoon mag! I love you A LOT!!!! (a lot a lot a lot!!!!!!)
Chokh di (Good luck/good bye :))
Sister Croft!
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