It's like a symphony: just keep listening, and pretty soon you'll start to figure out your part....

1. Our wonderful district in traditional Thai clothing on Saturday! The Elders were doing a part in the cultural dance that involved a lot of hip-shaking and jumping around. It was hilarious.

2. Elder Walker, me, my companions, Elder Evans and Elder Chamberlain, just a few of my Nong-Thais. I was so happy and grateful to be able to spend the weekend with a bunch of the Elders who I met in the MTC who are just rock-solid missionaries. They're all doing so well!

3. After Zone Conference on Monday, we went home to Kalasin and then to a member's house for FHE. We had chicken, salad and french fries, which all tasted very American and amazing. I was overwhelmed.

Sorry I'm late emailing this week, but we had District Conference this weekend so our P-Day was moved to Tuesday! Ballerrrrrr

This was a crazy week, but gratefully, one of miracles, which were so desperately needed, because I was dying last week in more ways than one. On Wednesday I just felt dead, but I pushed through hours of inviting and contacting at random places with little to no success until about 830. My companions wanted to head home and I did too, but I felt like we needed to go to our local grocery store "Big C" before we went home. So we went to Big C, and waited for 10 minutes...it was 850 and we needed to head home or we were going to be late for our 9pm curfew, so we went to our bikes and started getting our helmets on when suddenly a man and woman on a scooter drove by. My companion was closest and so she asked them if they wanted to go to church, and the woman without hesitation said, "Yes, I'm very interested!" While my companion got her phone number and talked to her more, I bent over my bike and just poured out my heart in gratitude, because I didn't have the energy to do anything else. It was such a huge miracle to meet someone who was so willing to learn about the gospel!

We spent most of the week getting ready for District Conference in KhonKen, a city in our zone where all the members of the church in the Isaan gathered. We were blessed to hear from Elder Gong, a member of the seventy. At the conference, we learned that they're splitting the Isaan districts (Udorn, Ubon, KhonKen) from three to two to increase membership and focus on getting two more stakes in the Isaan within the next 4-5 years! We're so excited about the change and excited for what it means for Thailand. In the next 5-10 years, the goal is to go from 2 stakes (what we currently have in Bangkok) to 7 throughout Thailand. A temple is going to happen here, for sure! And we have the blessing as missionaries to be able to help that come about.

There was so much that happened this weekend. On Sunday evening we had a special sacrament meeting for all the missionaries with a testimony meeting afterwards. I've been feeling really spiritually dead lately, but during the testimony meeting all the missionaries just opened up -- turns out I am not nor have ever been alone in my feelings of inadequacy or my spiritual struggles. As missionary after missionary went up and talked about how hard this mission is, and how much they've learned to turn to the Lord and how they've found ways to keep going when they didn't know how they could...well, it made me very aware that I've been doing the same thing these past 11 weeks in country.

As for my health...well, we don't think it's parasites anymore, although that could be a contributing factor...now they think it's a byproduct of stress, which is weird because I'm waaaay more relaxed than I was last transfer. But it's very common for missionaries here to have physical side-effects from stress. So I'm supposed to relax more. Which is pretty much impossible because we're in the Isaan! Ohhh well.

You know, as hard as it is here -- and believe me when I say it's hard out here -- I love it. At Zone Conference yesterday we watched a video of members of the Church here in Thailand put to the song "Glorious" by David Archuleta (go listen to it!) ...I was just overwhelmed with how much I love the people here, from the kids to the families to the drunk old men and women whose brains are so gone they can barely function. These people are so special to our Heavenly Father. I love our tiny, sometimes dramatic branch even though only 25 people are really active. I love the missionaries here in the Isaan. They're a special brand of missionary...it takes a different kind of strength and character to be able to work out here because the work is brutally hard and largely unfulfilling as far as results in baptisms and retention...but that's not what we see when we invite people to be baptized on a daily basis. We see (or we try to see) people as they really are -- the potential they have to our Heavenly Father, which is infinite. I remember a conversation I had with a good friend of mine last year at BYU about how Heavenly Father sees us, and my friend made the comment that Heavenly Father sees and values us not as we are right now, but as we have the potential to become in the eternities. And that being is of infinite worth and value. And as we serve God's children all around the world, we learn to see them the way God sees us all. And that's a beautiful process.

I love you all! Thank you for your prayers and support -- I felt the prayers on my behalf this week, and it kept me going past the point I thought I could go. Have a great week!

Love, 
Sister Zoller

BONUS VIDEO -- a summary of the weekend events!
http://youtu.be/BEScPySnDoY?list=UUvioo8VBAWg12GjXDDLSyKA

In a Kalasin far, far away....

So I'm in Thailand! la, it's the strangest thing. People here have smartphones and ipads and the works but they live in tiny shacks without air conditioning. Those kinds of contradictions are everywhere here and you just get used to it apparently...I haven't quite done that yet.

Before I get into everything, I'll talk about the journey to Thailand. Truly, God looks out for His missionaries, because there's no way 14 teenagers and young adults could have made it to Thailand with all our luggage as safely and smoothly as we did. We arrived in Bangkok tired and hot, and President Senior met us! He's pretty cool. I have to say, I wasn't expecting him to be as cool as he is. I went into my interview with him and within five minutes found out he's a HUGE Green Bay Packer fan. So, you know, he's obviously pretty righteous. ;)

Transfer meeting came and went, and in less than no time I left my district and hopped a bus to Kalasin, about 9 hours from Bangkok. My trainer is Sister Ladle. She's from Ohio, BYU student, she's been out here for about a year. She's so fun and honestly everything I could have ever asked for in a trainer. We get along really well (which is good because we spend lots of hours walking the hot streets of Kalasin inviting anything that moves to go to church)! We got into Kalasin at 4am Friday morning, got a ride to our apartment, slept for two hours, and got up at 630 to start my first day in this area. Woot. I've never wanted sleep more than I did on Friday. Maybe it was the lack of sleep combined with the fact that I haven't ridden a bike in two years, but I crashed my bike in a parking lot and have a bunch of bruises and a beautiful scrape to show for it. It finally stopped oozing pus today...so that's good.

Weeell. We haven't been having much success here in Kalasin. All our investigators dropped this week, a few people have just disappeared, and no matter how many hours we spend walking around asking people if they want to come to church and be clean, no one is really interested. They always say "may mii weyla" which means "don't have time." If they understood even a particle of what it was we were inviting them to do, they'd have all the time in the world! Ahh well. Maybe they're not ready. Regardless, we always ask. And while it should be kinda discouraging that we're not getting anywhere, it's not. I know what we're doing here is important enough to forget about the rejection. Rejection is our opportunity to prove our perseverance and patience to wait for the Lord's timing, and I could spend my whole mission waiting if that's what He needs me to do. And who knows but that we're planting seeds, softening hearts, or maybe even just making people's days. We met a man from Minnesota yesterday, and while he was in no way interested in what we had to say, he was more than happy to speak English with some farangs like us. Our purpose here is to love the people and invite them to Christ, and we've been doing that all the time.

Saturday I saw my first elephant! it was a baby, about as tall as me, and while we were "Dan Jones-ing" (inviting people to come to church/be baptized) it came up to us and decided it wanted to follow us around. Obviously, we invited it to church, but I think the language barrier was too much. Ah well. We tried.

Well, there's so much to say but no time left. I love you all! I love this work, and I love the people of Thailand! Have a great week!

Bonus:

Weirdest thing here: so one time we were biking somewhere and I saw a truck with a double decker cage just packed with pigs. That might be the strangest thing I've ever seen.

Coolest thing here: RAIN. it pours for five to twenty minutes a day and then just stops. I'm sure I'll get sick of it eventually but for now it's just awesome.

pictures: 

1. My beautiful scrape!

2. Water Buffalo! We weren't entirely sure if they wanted to follow us or charge us. It was a little bit nerve-racking, but also super fun.

3. So many scenes here look like they're straight out of National Geographic. Never gets old.

4. Sister Ladle on the wayyy back road to a member's house. We had to hurry and get back before it got dark since there weren't any street lights there...we made it, no worries!

5. So we made an apple cake for a ward activity...but we needed cinnamon and ground cinnamon doesn't exist here. So we bought sticks and ground them ourselves.

--

Sister Zoller

I'm ready to go! (get me outta my mind)

So...today's our last day here! And today I'm two months old already! We leave at 3:00pm Utah time and fly out tonight! It's sooo weird to think I've spent basically my entire summer here and now I'm finally leaving. But we're all so ready.

Monday night was our last night with Brother Thrap, one of our teachers. In honor of his last night, he sang "Let it Go" in Thai (he promised to do it a long time ago but we didn't think he actually would haha). We've really gotten attached to our teachers, they are all incredible people with incredible spirits and it's through their examples as teachers and friends that I've been able to become a better teacher and missionary here.

Tuesday was our last big devotional here! And wow was it a good one! Elder John Groberg came to speak to us (for those who don't know, he's the missionary that the movie "The Other Side of Heaven" is based on) about testimonies. We are always sharing our beliefs, whether we realize it or not, through what we say, what we do, what we sing, what we pray, what we write, and who we are. It was an inspiring devotional, but in my opinion the coolest parts came after he spoke. When all the missionaries in the MTC sang the closing hymn "I Know that My Redeemer Lives" and we're now several thousand strong, the Spirit hit me like a wall. We are truly God's army here, preparing to be sent forth to the nations to declare the truth and serve God's children. I'm so grateful to have been here for that. After the hymn, we went to our classroom for our "devotional review" with everyone in our district, and MAN my district is just so strong spiritually. 9 weeks with the same people 24/7 has given me an in-depth look into the lives of the 13 other people in my district, and I love them like they're my family.

Wednesday we got to host again! Hosting is one of my favorite things here, so I'm so grateful we got to do it one more time here. Some of the people I hosted and some of the people others in my district hosted got me thinking about how amazing it is that PEOPLE CAN CHANGE. While here, I always was so prideful about not wanting to change because I like who I am, but God has our end in mind and if we allow Him to improve us, we will never be disappointed with the result!

Thursday was my Dad's birthday! Happy birthday Dad! :) We had our last lesson with our investigator that night, so it was a little bittersweet. One powerful lesson I've learned here is that I am not the author of my success, the Lord is. When I commit myself to the work and focus on studying and being productive, I'm demonstrating my desire for the gift of tongues and the other blessings I've been promised as a missionary.

Friday was In-Field Orientation!!!! This is the infamous all-day workshop that takes place the Thursday or Friday before you enter the field. We've been looking forward to it for nine weeks haha...well, it was good. Nothing new, necessarily, and to be frank I think the majority of it was directed to missionaries going english-speaking or stateside, but there were definitely some good insights there.

Saturday was our last day of class -- another bittersweet moment. We got to say goodbye to Brother Shipley, Sister Stolworthy and Sister Hirschi, as well as our other teachers like Brother Chamberlin and Brother Yuen. Again, it's crazy how close we've all gotten. I've never once doubted that they genuinely care about me and love me and want to help me be the best missionary I can be. I'm so grateful for all of their insights, advice, and mostly their testimonies and their love for the people of Thailand. They have changed my mission and my life more than I can say and I love them more than I can express.

Sunday was our last everything! Last temple walk, last sacrament meeting, last time in our classroom together, last dinner in the MTC, last devotional...crazy! It was so much fun and crazy busy but all in all I can say this has been a great learning experience. In a lot of ways, the MTC is a refiner's fire, and as hard as it's been I'm grateful to have grown by being here for nine weeks. I didn't want it, but I think I needed it.

I love you all, and I love this gospel! I'm so grateful and humbled, really, to be going to Thailand and to be leaving TODAY.

1. district picture

2. picture with our Nong-thais!

3. another pic with our Nong-thais! We were only gonna get like one picture with a few of them but then suddenly they all piled in and wow I just love these missionaries so much! we have an amazing zone, and AMAZING missionaries going to Thailand!

--
Sister Zoller

Just a small town girl...

This week we were Skyped with people in Thailand for one of our lessons! Sooo crazy to think we were talking to a real person in Thailand...sometimes I think I've been here so long I've forgotten what real life is. The lesson was AWESOME. We met with a member and despite some issues with skype connections, it was a very powerful experience. I learned a lot and I'm so excited to leave for Thailand in...7 DAYS!!!!! That's right folks, we got our flight plans Friday evening and it's official! I'm leaving the United States for 16 months in Thailand. We fly out next Monday evening from Salt Lake City to LAX to Hong Kong and then we arrive in Bangkok on the morning of Wednesday, August 6.

I've been thinking a lot about Thailand lately, obviously...and it's led me to ponder the steps that led me here. I'm just a girl from a tiny town on Lake Michigan! I didn't have any major plans for my life, and I didn't really expect to go anywhere or do anything important. But here I am, doing the most important work that can be done on this earth for God's children on the other side of the world! And the only answer I can come up with for the why is because God has a plan for me and my life that is very individual and is meant to teach me a lot of humility, trust in God, and love for Him and for other people. I can't get over how grateful I am for this opportunity to serve and be a missionary. On that note, I can say with confidence that God has an individual plan for everyone, and that if we are obedient and work hard, the Lord's not gonna let us miss out on the awesome things He has in store for everyone and the amazing ways He wants to help us grow and develop.

This week was way fun! We've become pretty tight with all the Nong-Thais -- they're a great group of missionaries and I'm so pumped to serve with them in Thailand. The cool thing about being here is seeing all the potential in everyone, the incredible maturity and faith and strength. It brings me up every time I feel discouraged or overwhelmed. On a not-so-spiritual note, one of the Nong-Thai Elders this week said a prayer and he said "Khop khun farang" instead of "khop khun prah-ong" and "farang" is the thai word for guava fruit and also a lightly mocking word for white people, the cultural equivalent of being called a "gringo" in spanish-speaking countries. So instead of "We thank thee" he said "Thank you white dude" and that is something we're still laughing about a week after it happened. Maybe that's just funnier because we've been here as long as we have...

Tuesday we had an awesome devotional from a general authority and all nine of his children, who have all served missions (the youngest is still currently serving). The overall message I pulled from the devotional was the importance of hope. Hope is "an abiding trust" that all things will work together for our good. DON'T LOSE HOPE. Because when you do, you stop trying and caring. So even if you do lose hope, don't stop trying! Never stop trying and pushing forward because sometimes you just have to push through and while life never gets easier, it always gets better and it will get better!

Tuesday night, we ate a fresh mango (shoutout to Mama Nethercott for that one!) with Elder Okimoto and Elder Hilton. Elder Okimoto is from Hawaii and I thought he was going to cry tears of joy he was so happy to have a fresh mango. I've learned so much from him and all the elders about appreciating the simple pleasures and being able to laugh about everything and not sweat the small stuff.

Wednesday was Elder Curtis' birthday! He just turned 19, and while he's not the youngest in our district, he is very young and we all loved giving him a hard time all day. jk, jk, we just liked doing that because he didn't want us to make a big deal out of his birthday. We decked out his chair and desk and the other sisters even made him a birthday crown and fan. I also saw Hillary Hughes because she just got here to the MTC! Shoutout to Sister Hughes, she's gonna be an AWESOME missionary (48th ward represent!).

Thursday was service again! I got to put up the flag for Greece...not many people know this, but when I was 16, I went to a youth activity about missionary work and I was "called" to the Greece Athens mission. Before that time, I'd never thought seriously about a mission, nor did I think I would be any good at it. That day, we learned some Greek (all of which I've since forgotten) and went out to teach a lesson with the sister missionaries in that area. It was a super spiritual experience and made a powerful impact on me and made me mentally open to the possibility of serving. It definitely prepared me a lot for this mission, and it's because of that that Greece has always held a special place in my heart here.

Friday was a wonderful day for the sole reason that we got our travel plans!!! We've been here so long it doesn't feel like we're finally leaving, but we ARE and it's gonna be the greatest thing ever!
Saturday was crazy. Sister Herrmann has Strep throat and so we were up super late with her and Sister Brown helping them out and keeping them comfortable. Being sick in the MTC is soo horrible. You're supposed to be relaxing and staying in bed but you want to be productive but you can't mentally focus so you end up just feeling like you have no purpose and you feel like you're slacking off, which isn't true but that's just how you feel when you get sick here, and I'm guessing on the mission in general. Not fun. Sister Herrmann's been so positive though. She's a trooper. :)

On Sunday, we heard from Sheri Dew and had an amazing sacrament meeting with talks by our own Sister Nethercott and Elder Hinkson! We talked about the Book of Mormon...man, that is my favorite book of all time. I want absolutely everyone in the whole world to read it.

This is my last week here...gonna go hard! To quote Elder Curtis, "Let's freaking go!"

Shoutout to my family for being so awesome and for settling in Indianapolis this week! Shoutout to my Dad because it's his birthday this week! I love you guys so much!

(Extra note for anyone who reads these all the way through to the end: because I'm leaving on a Monday, if you send me any dearelders this week, they need to be sent before this Friday at noon because they don't do those on Saturday and on Monday we leave too early to get any mail. Same goes for any mail, if you want me to get it, send it as early as you can! I'll post my Thailand address probably next week.)

1. me and the greece flag!

2. Sister Nethercott, myself and the Nong-thai sisters! Sisters Hatch, Ong, and Grover.

3. Elders Curtis, Elder Hinkley, Elder Pratt, and Elder Hinkson doing a boy band pic.

--
Sister Zoller

Life isn't a t-shirt giveaway!

Sister Heaton, Sister Herrmann, Sister Tu'avo (probably spelled wrong), and I. Sister Heaton and Tu'avo left for Hong Kong this morning! We love them.

Me, Sister Nethercott, Elder Curtis and Elder Hinkson. I don't have favorites, but if I did, those would be my favorite Elders.

We told the Elders to smile for their moms and that was the result.

the Thai sisters! I love love LOVE them! Pitts, Alley, Herrmann, me, Peck, Brown, Nethercott, and Mamea.

Brown, Herrmann, me, Nethercott, Mamea. We love temple walks on Sundays!

Sawatdiikha iig! It's our second p-day here in the MTC! This week is a lot more down in the trenches getting dirty, but we're still learning so much and loving everything!

This has been a week of miracles. It's said at the MTC that obedience brings blessings, but exact obedience brings miracles, and this has been a week of miracles in our district. When I give everything to the Lord and trust Him, I can feel the spirit speaking through me and helping me remember words and phrases that I would never remember without divine help. I've been sitting in lessons not knowing what to say when suddenly a phrase will pop into my head and I'll know exactly what the Spirit wants me to say. It's a powerful experience and I'm so grateful to be learning Thai.

It's said that Thai is one of the hardest languages to learn for English speakers, along with Vietnamese, Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese, and Cambodian...all the languages in our zone! It's supposed to take thousands of classroom hours to be able to learn all the grammar and syntax and everything and the fact that I can carry a broken conversation and understand what's being said is nothing less than a miracle.

It can be really stressful and discouraging at times, despite all our success and motivation, and this week was definitely long and hard. I was frustrated initially because I can't deal with stress how I normally would by jamming out to music or going for a drive or a late-night run, but I've realized I have sooo many resources to help me even here. I've been blessed with an AMAZING district and whenever some of us get down, Elder Curtis or Elder Hinkson will crack a joke or Sister Alley will give us a positive pep talk or someone will read a scripture or we'll have an Easy Cheese friday night party or I'll get a priesthood blessing and they're such simple things, but they make such a big difference in helping me make it through one more day at a time. Around here, you gotta get excited about the little things and tender mercies because they're EVERYWHERE but you just gotta look sometimes. Some days when I get really burned out I go listen to spanish hymns while I study Thai, and it's such a tender mercy from the Lord to be able to have access to those on the LDS website. And all the mormon messages! Go watch the one called "True Christianity" with the cute little old men in the biker club. I love it. And go watch the one about fathers, too! It's even better!

One night this week, we were sooo burned out. We'd had 8 hours of Thai and were feeling like we weren't getting any of it, and as we were moping one of the Vietnamese Elders named Elder Andrews stopped in our classroom and we started talking. Out of nowhere, he shared with us some things his district had been talking about recently. He emphasized that the mission is the Lord's time; when we come here to serve, we sacrifice everything about our old lives to devote everything we have to serving the Lord completely. This is His time, not ours, so obedience is key. Then someone reminded us of that quote that goes something like "You have two years to give to the Lord and the rest of your life to think about it." CRAZY. but true. Talking with Elder Andrews was exactly what we needed that night to put things in perspective.

I remember a picture/saying that used to hang in our house back in Wisconsin, and I don't remember if we still have it but it says, "With God behind us, and His arms beneath us, we can face whatever lies before us."

Happy Father's day! It was hard being in the MTC yesterday when literally all anyone was talking about was how great Dads are, but it's true. Dads are awesome, and mine is especially awesome. I'm so grateful for his example to me and his patience and love. In addition to our earthly fathers, we all have a Heavenly Father who loves us and wants nothing more than to help us. Turn to Him in everything you do, and you will notice an increase in divine help in whatever you need help with. Remember, if it's important to you, it's important to Him.

Have a great week everyone!

Sidtaa Zoller

Lemme tell you the story about the call that changed my destiny...

Dear Sister Zoller,
You are hereby called to serve as a missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You are assigned to labor in the Thailand, Bangkok Mission. You should report to the Provo Missionary Training Center June 25, 2014. You will prepare to preach the gospel in the Thai language.

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaatup. (ten points if you got the Backstreet Boys song reference in the title)

I can still remember the feeling of my heart doing some kinda crazy dubstep thing in my chest when I read that for the first time. It took a solid 48 hours for me to realize I'd actually gotten a real mission call and I wasn't just hallucinating it, and another two months to start taking it seriously and actually start preparing. When I got the call, I couldn't have told you where Thailand was on a map. And I didn't even know Thai was a language. To be utterly honest, I was hoping I'd get called to Kansas. Seriously. I never wanted to speak anything other than Spanish or English, never wanted to travel, definitely didn't want to leave the continent. I have no ties to Thailand, no super cool ancestors from there, nada. But the Lord called me to the people there, and that was something I knew the moment I read that letter and something I've never doubted since.

I could spend the rest of this post talking about what made me want to go on a mission, and the incredible things that have happened in my life to lead me to this point, all the "coincidences" that were never coincidences but pure divine inspiration, but I won't. Because the only thing that matters right now is that I'm going. If I'm anything, I am living proof that people can and do change, and that anything is possible -- seriously, anything -- through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. It's how we change and grow into the people God wants us to be. In my short life, I've had the opportunity to become intimately acquainted with the Atonement through a series of mishaps and mistakes that I can say now have all turned out to be humongous blessings in disguise. I'm so grateful for Jesus Christ and His ultimate sacrifice that allows me to change into a better person and have hope. I don't know where I'd be without my testimony of the Atonement!

One of the greatest lessons I've learned in the last few months is that we've all been called to serve the people around us, in the places that we've been led. I don't need a formal envelope with a fancy mission packet to know that I'm supposed to be serving specific people in my apartment or building or ward! There are no coincidences. If you're living your life right (and, I've found, even if you're not), you'll be led to touch the lives of others in ways you can't possibly imagine, and through that you'll find more happiness than you can imagine. I've tried a lot of things in life, and the one thing that has brought me the most real joy is the gospel.

And that's the most important thing right there, kids. The gospel's meant to bring us joy. This is a business of happiness and anyone working in or around it can feel the impact. It's crazy, it's powerful, and it's so, so real.

On June 4th, in three short weeks, I'm off to serve a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in the Thailand, Bangkok mission. I'm a little terrified, not of the language or the food or even the mosquitoes but of the fact that this will probably be the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. There's not a day that goes by that I don't question whether I'm cut out to go on a mission, but I won't know unless I try and give it everything I've got!

And for nostalgia's sake, here's the video of my mission call opening: