Hello everyone! This week has been awesome and crazy, partly because it was my last week in the Missionary Training Center, and partially because of Thanksgiving.
It seems impossible that I have already been here for 9 weeks. In a weird way the MTC has started to feel like home. I'm really going to miss it here (I don't know if I ever thought I would say that!), especially the people. Everyone I have met here is so amazing and I have grown with them and because of them. My district particularly is super close. We like to say we are a big, weird family. It's going to be hard to leave them tomorrow, but I know they are all going to do amazing things in Cambodia, and that there are equally amazing people waiting for me in Tacoma.
Now, Thanksgiving. It was amazing! Elder Oaks, one of the twelve apostles, came and spoke to us in the morning, and his daughter, Jenni Oaks Baker, played the violin (she is a professional violinist with the something-or-other symphony). It was a great way to start the day. Then, we had a thanksgiving meal, with tons of amazing food. They even had eggnog and apple cider, and a Utah favorite, fluff salad. I thought I was going to be disappointed, but the food was actually amazing. Different from what I eat at home, but still delicious. After lunch, because I am in a leadership position, I helped set up for our humanitarian project while the rest of my zone had a discussion of the devotional. We then went to another devotional about the importance of humanitarian work, and how we show gratitude through serving others. After the devotional, we vaccum packed meals for needy children in Utah and some surrounding states with a group called Feeding Children Everywhere. They are really cool organization, and you should look them up. We packed over 357,000 meals, and they had to stop us an hour early because we had used up all the supplies they had brought! It was super fun, and it felt so good to know we wer4e helping so many people. When we were done with the humanitarian project, we helped clean everything up, and then ate sack dinners in our classroom. We then watched the movie "17 Miracles", which I thought was going to be super cheesy, but I actually loved it. Then, to close out the night, we went to a "gratitude tribute", which was a combination of talents, short talks, video clips, and singing. I don;t really know how to explain it, but it was an amazing experience.As we left the auditorium to go home, the ushers gave us all a candy cane to kick off our Christmas season, and all the trees on campus were light up in different kinds of light. It was kind of magical.
Speaking of Christmas, this year's Christmas video clip came out on Sunday, and it is super cool. Here is the link if you haven't seen it yet, or if you have but you want to see it again. Just click the play button right under the words "A Savior is Born"
In other news, I have spent all day packing. It is hard to fit everything I need for 16 months into only 140 lbs (2 50lb suitcases and 1 40 lb carry-on bag). But as i was packing and feeling stressed about making everything fit, and wishing I wasn't limited to 140 lbs, I thought of all the people in the world who don't even have 140 lbs of anything, and here I was complaining that I'm only allowed to bring that much on an airplane. It really changed my attitude, especially because the faces of some of the Cambodians that my teachers taught and my companions will meet came to my mind, and suddenly going with out a few of the things I wanted to take with me didn't seem so hard.
Also, we got our Cambodian script name tags this week! Mine says Sista Lehmin. It's so cool!
These past few days, I have had the song "Savior, Redeemer of My Soul" stuck in my head. If you have never heard it, I highly recommend you go to youtube and look up Vocal Point's rendition of it. It is awesome. Anyway, the lyrics are amazing, and are an amazing poem even without the music, but then the melody really brings out certain words and it's just an amazing whole. So, on Friday morning, I analyzed the lyrics as if I were analyzing a poem (because I'm a big nerd and that kind of thing is really fun to me), and I was studying some of the scriptures that the lyrics come from. One of them is Alma 5:26, which says " And now behold, I say unto you, my brethren, if ye have experienced a change of heart, and if ye have felt to sing the song of redeeming love, I would ask, can ye feel so now?" The answer of course is yes, and I love that. If you have ever felt joy in your life (which i know you all have), you can feel that joy always, you just have to choose what aspects of life you are going to focus on. Now, I'm not saying life isn't hard, because that would be a ridiculous statement. But I have come to realize over the past several weeks that good things and bad things will both always happen, but the ones that affect us most are the ones we focus on. I can choose to focus on the fact that I'm struggling with reading Cambodian, or i can be excited and grateful that I have the chance to learn such an amazing language and use it to help people. Realizing this has helped me develop a positive attitude, because even though things are hard, life is also an amazing gift.
Well, I have run out of time. i will write you all again next week, this time from Tacoma!
Love,
Sister Lemon
It seems impossible that I have already been here for 9 weeks. In a weird way the MTC has started to feel like home. I'm really going to miss it here (I don't know if I ever thought I would say that!), especially the people. Everyone I have met here is so amazing and I have grown with them and because of them. My district particularly is super close. We like to say we are a big, weird family. It's going to be hard to leave them tomorrow, but I know they are all going to do amazing things in Cambodia, and that there are equally amazing people waiting for me in Tacoma.
Now, Thanksgiving. It was amazing! Elder Oaks, one of the twelve apostles, came and spoke to us in the morning, and his daughter, Jenni Oaks Baker, played the violin (she is a professional violinist with the something-or-other symphony). It was a great way to start the day. Then, we had a thanksgiving meal, with tons of amazing food. They even had eggnog and apple cider, and a Utah favorite, fluff salad. I thought I was going to be disappointed, but the food was actually amazing. Different from what I eat at home, but still delicious. After lunch, because I am in a leadership position, I helped set up for our humanitarian project while the rest of my zone had a discussion of the devotional. We then went to another devotional about the importance of humanitarian work, and how we show gratitude through serving others. After the devotional, we vaccum packed meals for needy children in Utah and some surrounding states with a group called Feeding Children Everywhere. They are really cool organization, and you should look them up. We packed over 357,000 meals, and they had to stop us an hour early because we had used up all the supplies they had brought! It was super fun, and it felt so good to know we wer4e helping so many people. When we were done with the humanitarian project, we helped clean everything up, and then ate sack dinners in our classroom. We then watched the movie "17 Miracles", which I thought was going to be super cheesy, but I actually loved it. Then, to close out the night, we went to a "gratitude tribute", which was a combination of talents, short talks, video clips, and singing. I don;t really know how to explain it, but it was an amazing experience.As we left the auditorium to go home, the ushers gave us all a candy cane to kick off our Christmas season, and all the trees on campus were light up in different kinds of light. It was kind of magical.
Speaking of Christmas, this year's Christmas video clip came out on Sunday, and it is super cool. Here is the link if you haven't seen it yet, or if you have but you want to see it again. Just click the play button right under the words "A Savior is Born"
In other news, I have spent all day packing. It is hard to fit everything I need for 16 months into only 140 lbs (2 50lb suitcases and 1 40 lb carry-on bag). But as i was packing and feeling stressed about making everything fit, and wishing I wasn't limited to 140 lbs, I thought of all the people in the world who don't even have 140 lbs of anything, and here I was complaining that I'm only allowed to bring that much on an airplane. It really changed my attitude, especially because the faces of some of the Cambodians that my teachers taught and my companions will meet came to my mind, and suddenly going with out a few of the things I wanted to take with me didn't seem so hard.
Also, we got our Cambodian script name tags this week! Mine says Sista Lehmin. It's so cool!
These past few days, I have had the song "Savior, Redeemer of My Soul" stuck in my head. If you have never heard it, I highly recommend you go to youtube and look up Vocal Point's rendition of it. It is awesome. Anyway, the lyrics are amazing, and are an amazing poem even without the music, but then the melody really brings out certain words and it's just an amazing whole. So, on Friday morning, I analyzed the lyrics as if I were analyzing a poem (because I'm a big nerd and that kind of thing is really fun to me), and I was studying some of the scriptures that the lyrics come from. One of them is Alma 5:26, which says " And now behold, I say unto you, my brethren, if ye have experienced a change of heart, and if ye have felt to sing the song of redeeming love, I would ask, can ye feel so now?" The answer of course is yes, and I love that. If you have ever felt joy in your life (which i know you all have), you can feel that joy always, you just have to choose what aspects of life you are going to focus on. Now, I'm not saying life isn't hard, because that would be a ridiculous statement. But I have come to realize over the past several weeks that good things and bad things will both always happen, but the ones that affect us most are the ones we focus on. I can choose to focus on the fact that I'm struggling with reading Cambodian, or i can be excited and grateful that I have the chance to learn such an amazing language and use it to help people. Realizing this has helped me develop a positive attitude, because even though things are hard, life is also an amazing gift.
Well, I have run out of time. i will write you all again next week, this time from Tacoma!
Love,
Sister Lemon
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| This is my district with one of our teachers, Lokruu (the title for a male teacher) Mickleson. Saturday was his last day of class with us because he got promoted, so after 3 years, we are the last district he will teach. I feel really lucky that I got to learn from him, because he is an amazing teacher and he really cares about all of us. Also, pardon my cheesy grin. I was laughing at something. I don't remember what. |
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