Week 4: The One with the Head-butt Sneeze

Hello everyone! can you believe that this week, I will have been in the MTC for a whole month?!

To begin, let me explain this week's title. One day, I was walking through the hall to class after lunch and it was pretty crowded because everyone was trying to get to their various classrooms. Suddenly, I had this huge sneeze, and I turned my head so as not to rudely sneeze on my companion. Well, in the process of trying not to get her sick, I ended up headbutting some random elder in the elbow, and got a little goose egg on my head! How unfortunately unlikely is that? I apologized profusely, and then busted up laughing.

This week we worked on reading a lot, and it is super fun. Our teachers also explained to us why we have to learn to read Cambodian, because most of the Asian languages don't have to. However, as some of you may know, after the Vietnam war, Cambodia was ruled by the Khmer Ruge, which was basically communist to the extreme, and they wouldn't let anyone go to school. Everyone just had to work in the rice fields all day. They Cambodian people get to go to school now, but a lot of the older generation never got that opportunity, and therefore they don't know how to read. So, any scriptures we want then to know, we have to read for them. I think this helped us all get more excited about reading because we are doing it for others who cannot do it for themselves. Actually, in that way, it is kind of like Jesus Christ's Atonement, because He overcame death and sin for us, which we could never do for ourselves.

Also in Cambodian culture news, I learned this week that "rice" and "food" are basically synonymous in ever day use. One of the first questions you ask when you greet someone is "have you eaten rice yet today?" because if they've eaten food, you can assume at least some of it was rice. The exception is white people. They assume all white people are French, and that French people love bread, so the question to a white person is "have you eaten bread yet today?". Apparently they think it's really funny, and they laugh when the white people say yes.

Other than that, I don't have a lot to say this week. I feel like everything is starting to get pretty routine (finally!). Everything is still amazing here. I grow closer to my companions, my district, and my Savior every day. Some days are hard, but I have such amazing teachers and friends here, that I never go to bed frustrated. Basically I'm just super happy and I'm loving my mission!

I want to leave you with a thought from choir this past Tuesday. We were singing a number called "I Feel My Savior's Love", and the choir director (who is AMAZING at both music and telling engaging stories) brought in this little girl who is one of his voice students. She is 8 years old, and just got baptized, and she is adorable! She sang us a song, and we were all infatuated with how cute and innocent she looked. Then the choir director said something along these lines: we all believe that God loves Mia (this little girl). It isn't hard to believe that, because we all already love Mia, and we just met her 5 minutes ago. She looks so pure and adorable, how could we not love her? Remember, that is how your Heavenly Father views you. He sees you as one of His little children. Compared to him, you have so little experience, and you are so innocent and cute. God loves you, even when you have a hard time loving you.

I just loved that, so I thought I would share it with you all.

Anyway, that is all I have to say this week. I hope everything is going well for all of you, and I will write you again next week! Until then,

Love,

Sister Lemon

This is all of my district's name tags. We thought this picture was "creative".

This is my district with Brother and Sister Moon, who used to be the presidents of the Cambodia mission, and are now our leaders at the MTC.

This is my district this morning, featuring the temple and the Cambodian flag.

This is our weekly Smatching Smunday picture. I think this one was the best one yet, even if I had to wer Sister Nguyen's skirt! I am wearing polka dots, too, they are just in my hair.

Episode 3: The One with the Football Devotional

Hello friends! It is Monday once again, which means it is time for my weekly update!

Yesterday was Sunday, which means we have a speaker come for a devotional. Basically cool people come here twice a week and share an uplifting or motivating message with is. They are always amazing, but yesterday's was really cool because my companion, Sister Pace, was asked to give the opening prayer, so we got to sit up on the stage with the speakers. It was cool to be so close to them. The three people who spoke were Chad Lewis (a former NFL tight end and the NFL ambassador to China), Taysom Hill (the BYU quarterback who apparently everyone loves), and Steve Young's nephew (who is in the MTC right now learning Mandarin and preparing to serve in Australia!). I have therefore dubbed this the football devotional. Now, if you now me well, which you all do, you probably know how clueless I am about football. I was therefore a little disappointed to find out that the speakers were all football players, but they were actually super cool! I don't have time to tell you everything that they said, which was all amazing, but I will share with you this thought: There are going to be hard things in your life no matter what. There is nothing you can do to change that. What you can do is decide how to respond to hardships and what kind of attitude you will have through it all. I feel like I've heard that about a billion times, but it has so much more impact when a pro football player is telling you about the time when he hiked Mt. Kilimanjaro with a man who had lost his leg in the Afghanistan war, and the attitude this man had.

In other news, my companions and I taught Relief Society (a Sunday school class for women) yesterday. Our adult leader was super impressed and told us it was the best Relief Society lesson she has ever been to in the MTC! She was either just being nice, or Heavenly Father taught her directly, because I don't feel like we really taught anything so much as just learned from everyone's comments. It was a great experience for me.

Now for a funny story! Most of our time here is spent preparing and practicing to teach in Cambodian. One of the ways we do this is by role playing, in which our teachers act as people that they taught on their missions, and we practice teaching them each day. This week, I was trying to encourage one of the people we were practicing teaching. He said he felt like he wasn't good enough at praying and sometimes he felt embarrassed about it. I was trying to say "we aren't perfect at teaching in Cambodian, and you aren't perfect at praying, but if we just keep trying, God will help us get better ". What I actually ended up saying was "we aren't perfect, but you are", and then I realized my mistake, and in trying to correct it, I said "wait, no you're not. You're not good at praying". Oh, man! I felt so silly. Luckily, he was very understanding, and he said he understood what I meant to say, and that my mistake actually made him feel better about not being perfect. So I guess it was an inspired goof!

I can also read some Cambodian now! It takes me a really long time, and I have to check my alphabet chart pretty frequently, but I'm working on it! Maybe by my next update, I'll be able to read whole sentences! I can only hope.

Well, that is all for this week! You guys are the best, and it means a lot to me that I have all your support. What an amazing life I am blessed with!

Love,

Sister Lemon

This is me and Sister Curtis, my room mate from BYU! She got here on Wednesday.

Smatching Smunday

Here are our Smatching Smunday pictures, guest starring Sister Brown, who also accidentally wore orange and white with us!

The Cambodians and the Vietnamese on our temple walk. Elder Phan died.

This is the "silly" version. Elder Phan disappeared.

Pictures from Week 2

Hello everyone! I have now been at the MTC for 12 days. Sometimes it feels like it has already been 12 weeks, and sometimes it feels like it hasn't even been 12 hours. It's crazy and fun and I love it! Also, just a warning, but this email will not be any particular order, because I have a lot I want to tell you all about, but i can't remember what order it happened in!

First of all, the ambassador's visit last week was pretty anticlimactic. He was just a really nice little Vietnamese guy, and he just asked us where we were all from and then left. I think he spent more time with the two elders learning Vietnamese. Also, if you were hoping to see a picture of me with the ambassador, no such luck, because it didn't happen. But I have lots of other great pictures coming your way, so fear not, you will see my pretty face later today!

As for the title of this email, here is the story:

A few days a go I wore rain boots to class because they're really cute, even though it wasn't raining. They're black ankle rain boots with a big white bow on the front, which I promise is important to the story. That evening, one of the Elders who is going to Cambodia Vietnamese speaking said my shoes looked like something you could eat! "They're like black licorice or gummy bears for your feet" is what he told me. He is from New Zealand, and apparently rain boots look different there.

My district played basketball together during Saturday gym time, and it was so fun! I was afraid I would embarrass myself because, as you probably know, I'm not very athletically inclined. But my district is awesome and they were all super supportive of me, even though I broke the rules like 5 times and I made an illegal shot that they let me count anyway (kind of. We aren't allowed to keep score in the MTC.) This probably sounds insignificant, but it just really made me feel so happy and loved.

My district also all went to choir yesterday, and it was amazing. We were all kind of hesitant to do it because we had to miss an hour of our studying time, but we decided just to try it out, and it was definitely worth it. The choir director is an amazing storyteller, and he teaches us a lot about the gospel as he explains how he wants us to sing what we are singing, The number we are practicing right now is beautiful as well, so it was a great use of an hour.

I also taught my district's Sunday school lesson yesterday, which was a little bit scary because I didn't know about it until yesterday morning, and I had to teach the same afternoon! But my district always has awesome discussions, so it went really well despite my lack of preparation.

In Cambodian Language news, we started learning how to read script on Saturday! The alphabet has 74 letters, and I don't have them even close to memorized yet, but I'm working on it! Cambodian script also isn't read side to side, it's read in loops! The main consonant is in the middle of the word, and then the other consonants and vowels go around it. But it looks way cool, so I'm excited to get better at it.

I want to end with a scripture that has really stuck with me this week, and I think just embodies missionary work and my experience here really well. It is Alma 26:12, which I cannot quote exactly, but it says basically that in our strength we are weak, but with God's strength we can do anything, and that is why we can even hope to be successful missionaries (or parents or students or anything else). You should look it up because it is excellent.

I hope you have a wonderful week, and look forward to pictures shortly!

Love,

Sister Lemon

Episode 2: The One with the Gummy Boots

Hello everyone! I have now been at the MTC for 12 days. Sometimes it feels like it has already been 12 weeks, and sometimes it feels like it hasn't even been 12 hours. It's crazy and fun and I love it! Also, just a warning, but this email will not be any particular order, because I have a lot I want to tell you all about, but i can't remember what order it happened in!

First of all, the ambassador's visit last week was pretty anticlimactic. He was just a really nice little Vietnamese guy, and he just asked us where we were all from and then left. I think he spent more time with the two elders learning Vietnamese. Also, if you were hoping to see a picture of me with the ambassador, no such luck, because it didn't happen. But I have lots of other great pictures coming your way, so fear not, you will see my pretty face later today!

As for the title of this email, here is the story:

A few days a go I wore rain boots to class because they're really cute, even though it wasn't raining. They're black ankle rain boots with a big white bow on the front, which I promise is important to the story. That evening, one of the Elders who is going to Cambodia Vietnamese speaking said my shoes looked like something you could eat! "They're like black licorice or gummy bears for your feet" is what he told me. He is from New Zealand, and apparently rain boots look different there.

My district played basketball together during Saturday gym time, and it was so fun! I was afraid I would embarrass myself because, as you probably know, I'm not very athletically inclined. But my district is awesome and they were all super supportive of me, even though I broke the rules like 5 times and I made an illegal shot that they let me count anyway (kind of. We aren't allowed to keep score in the MTC.) This probably sounds insignificant, but it just really made me feel so happy and loved.

My district also all went to choir yesterday, and it was amazing. We were all kind of hesitant to do it because we had to miss an hour of our studying time, but we decided just to try it out, and it was definitely worth it. The choir director is an amazing storyteller, and he teaches us a lot about the gospel as he explains how he wants us to sing what we are singing, The number we are practicing right now is beautiful as well, so it was a great use of an hour.

I also taught my district's Sunday school lesson yesterday, which was a little bit scary because I didn't know about it until yesterday morning, and I had to teach the same afternoon! But my district always has awesome discussions, so it went really well despite my lack of preparation.

In Cambodian Language news, we started learning how to read script on Saturday! The alphabet has 74 letters, and I don't have them even close to memorized yet, but I'm working on it! Cambodian script also isn't read side to side, it's read in loops! The main consonant is in the middle of the word, and then the other consonants and vowels go around it. But it looks way cool, so I'm excited to get better at it.

I want to end with a scripture that has really stuck with me this week, and I think just embodies missionary work and my experience here really well. It is Alma 26:12, which I cannot quote exactly, but it says basically that in our strength we are weak, but with God's strength we can do anything, and that is why we can even hope to be successful missionaries (or parents or students or anything else). You should look it up because it is excellent.

I hope you have a wonderful week, and look forward to pictures shortly!

Love,

Sister Lemon

A selfie of my district and the two Vietnamese speaking elders on our temple walk yesterday, thanks to Sister Nguyen's selfie stick.

Smatching Smonday

Me and Sister Pace being goofy

My nametag and the temple

The temple in the sunshine

Our district at the temple with Brother Seow, on of our adult leaders (not the Vietnamese ambassador). He is very cool, very wise, and very Asian!

Pictures from Week 1

elders in the district

district at the temple

sisters in the district

studying

Hi everybody!

I have reached my fist planning day here at the MTC, and therefore my first opportunity to email you all.

I love it here! My experience so far has been nothing but positive. At the end of every day, We spend 15 minutes reflecting on our day, and every day I just feel so happy and grateful and full of joy at the amazing opportunity and experience this is.

I am lucky enough to have TWO companions, not Just one. Sister Pace and Sister Clark are awesome, and I'm so glad I get to spend all day every day with them. I'm still getting used to having to take 2 people with me everywhere I go, but they're so great to be around, that I don't even mind

I also have an amazing district (class). There are 4 elders ad 7 sisters, which is actually pretty huge compared to most other districts. Everyone in my district is going to Cambodia except for me, which is funny because whenever anyone asks us "where are you all going", someone answers for the group with "we are all going to Cambodia", and then I say "Except for me! I'm speaking Cambodian in Tacoma!"

Speaking of Cambodian, I am loving learning this language! Its very different from the other languages I've learned because the constructions are actually very simple, but the vocabulary and pronunciation is hard. But I definitely feel hopeful about my learning. I can already pray and bear my testimony, and we taught a (very short) role play lesson completely in Cambodian on our third day here! I know that Heavenly Father is helping us, because what we have done during our time here would be IMPOSSIBLE without Him. We are also a real support for each other as we learn together and help each other.

We have a really special event later today. The ambassador from Vietnam is coming to observe our district and decide whether to open Vietnam to missionaries! Right now only Vietnamese people can go into Vietnam as missionaries, but they are considering changing that, and this visit is going to help influence that decision. No pressure! A staff member is going to take a picture of us with the ambassador, so I will get to send that to you all next week.

Speaking of pictures, I promise I have some, but I have to send them in a separate email, so look forward to those shortly.

Also, my trio lives with 2 sisters who are going to Hong Kong, which is really cool because we get to hear them speak in Cantonese sometimes. They also like listening to us try to speak Cambodian.

The MTC has also unlocked in me a love for salads! I know that probably comes as a surprise to some of you, but the salads here are DELICIOUS!! Pretty much all I eat is soup, salads, and fruit, and it's awesome.

Well, I know I kinda jumped around there, but I just have so much to say and I'm so excited to share everything with you all. In summary, I love the MTC, the gospel is awesome, and I will send pictures shortly.

Love,

Sister Lemon

P.S. I would love to hear from you all! You can email me at this address, and I will check it (and respond!) every Monday. Or, while I am in the MTC, you can use DearElder.com to contact me. This is really cool because it is free, and they actually print your messages out and give physical copies every day! All you have to do is go to DearElder.com, select "write a missionary", and then follow the steps. Info you will need is:

My Mission: Provo MTC

My Unit Number: 261

My Departure Date: DEC01

Mission Code WA-TAC

I hope to hear from you soon!