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

know your purpose, be bold, expect miracles!

Sooo...another week. Man are these flying now. Sister Nethercott shared with me a diagram this week that has a long line representing our lives on Earth and another line that is almost equally long that represents our time here in the MTC. Looking back, it feels like forever, but looking forward, it feels like no time at all, because we only have two weeks left here in the states!

Due to unusual circumstances with part of the district, there was a companion transfer for myself, Sister Herrmann, Sister Brown and Sister Nethercott. My new khuu is Sister Nethercott, and Sister Herrmann is with Sister Brown. I love Sister Herrmann and have learned a lot from her! She is a dedicated missionary and knows how to focus on really getting to know the investigator and helping relate the gospel to them with their personal challenges. She also has a love for the Doctrine and Covenants I've never seen, and it's inspired me to study and appreciate that book more. She's extremely gifted with the language and knows how to focus and study effectively. I've been blessed to be her companion for the last six weeks (the length of a normal transfer).

As awesome as Sister Herrmann is, I am thrilled to have Sister Nethercott as my khuu! We sat down at our first companion study to talk about our language goals for the next few weeks and discovered that we share all the same goals! We went right to work and we've accomplished so much in just the last three days. We've already memorized our missionary purpose and half of the hymn "Called to Serve" in Thai, and this week we're diving into memorizing the First Vision in Thai and one or two other scripture passages. We've been so productive, and I've already learned so much from Sister Nethercott about how to be a better missionary.

Because we are missionaries, everything we do here is done in the name of Jesus Christ -- prayers, testimonies, invitations, studying...everything. This week, we had a devotional about remembering the sacredness of that name and not letting our prayers, which end in his name, to become repetitive or commonplace. It helped me evaluate how I pray and make efforts to make my prayers more meaningful. Since learning how to pray in Thai, my prayers have become more powerful and more sincere since I have to really think about what I'm saying. It's a huge blessing to be set apart to learn and speak a foreign language.

As mentioned last week, this week we said goodbye to the Cambodian, Vietnamese, and Hmong missionaries in our zone. It was exciting but also sad, because we've all gotten really close in the last six weeks. Tomorrow, the two Lao-speaking Elders fly out and after that we will be the oldest people in the zone! We had 18 new Thai-speaking missionaries come in last week, though, so that was awesome. They remind me so much of our district when we first got here, all wide-eyed and trying to contain the insane amount of new knowledge being crammed in their heads. They're gonna be so great. We're now majority Thai-speaking in our zone, with two other districts of Cantonese-speakers. So, huge shoutout to the Lao Elders, because they're leaving this week. They've been the zone leaders for the last three weeks, and man do we love them. For those who don't know, Laotian and Thai are pretty similar -- if you know one, you can understand the other pretty well. Lao is actually a little easier than Thai in some ways, so we've picked up some Lao and the Lao Elders have helped us speak/read Thai better. We love them and wish them the best of luck in Sacramento, California!

With the Lao Elders leaving, our new zone leaders are Elder Curtis and Elder Hinkson. As goofy and immature as they can sometimes be (and as loud as Elder Curtis laughs sometimes), they have the Spirit and power of God with them and as I watched them on Sunday go up to the stand and take on their new responsibilities, I was struck with how grateful I am to be in this district to see the growth and change in everyone. It feels like forever for all that's happened, but it's been no time at all for all the growth that's taken place in everyone. It's been especially apparent in the Elders, but everyone in my district is so spiritually mature and has such an understanding and love for this work and it is inspiring.

With all the Nong-Thais (new thai missionaries) we've had some extra substitute teachers stepping in and helping every once in a while. We love them all dearly! Brother Sanchez (who's actually the official Lao teacher but knows Thai, Lao, Hmong, Spanish, and Arabic) was teaching us this week and Elder Hinkson asked him in Thai if Brother Sanchez can translate between all those languages "on the fly." What Elder Hinkson meant to say was "Khun blaah on the fly?" (the "a" sound in "blaah" is pronounced like the A in apple, and it means "to translate") but what he actually said was "Khun bleh on the fly?" and "bleh" means fish and putting "khun" before a noun makes it beloved, so what Elder Hinkson actually said to Brother Sanchez was "Beloved fish on the fly." We haven't stopped calling Elder Hinkson "beloved fish" yet.

Aside from the companion swap, the highlight of the week was probably getting our Thai nametags! Shoutout to Sister Nethercott for asking around and being determined in getting them for us a week earlier than we otherwise would have. We're not allowed to wear them here because we're an English-speaking training center so people need to be able to read our nametags, but they're so cool.

Extra shoutout to the Elders down the hall from us who are going to Madagascar speaking Malagasy! They're so much fun and we love bearing our testimonies to each other in Thai and Malagasy.

I love you all! Have a wonderful week!

Pics:
1. Sister Nethercott, myself, Elders Hinkson and Curtis (new zone leaders) and Elder Parsons and Griffin (old zone leaders/Lao Elders).
2. Thai nametag! Looks pretty funky, huh?
--
Sister Zoller

Week 6 (just put me on a plane to Thailand already!)

Me and my puppy Ginger!

Well, all I've got to say about the MTC at this point is that I'm leaving three weeks from today and that is a wonderful, wonderful blessing! On Monday, we got to clean the Provo temple with our district! The sisters cleaned the chandeliers in the sealing rooms. I've never noticed before how incredibly intricate all the light fixtures -- dozens and dozens of tiny glass rods put together to reflect light. As a Church, we put so much work into our temples because they are truly the Lord's houses, and I feel immensely blessed to have access to one like I do for the next few weeks.

While we were serving in the temple, we were with some of the temple workers who were helping and directing us. We sat down cleaning crystal chandelier pieces and talked for maybe two hours. It was the first time I've had a legitimate conversation with a person outside of the MTC since I got here and I can't tell you how nice it was to sit down with a person who actually knew 80s music as well as I do (shoutout to Dad and Mom for raising me right!).

Beyond that, the only really unique thing that happened this week was our district kickball game against the Cambodian district on Saturday! We lost, but our whole district had a blast. Considering I've never played kickball before in my life, I think we did pretty dang good. I've also started playing catch with Sister Peck and sometimes other people in our district, and there's nothing quite as relaxing as playing catch outside on a beautiful morning in the shadow of a gorgeous mountain and a temple (until I accidentally hit Sister Brown with a softball. She's totally fine, don't worry. shoutout to Sister Brown for being awesome and playing with me anyways!). Oh, and we also flew kites in the rain during companion study this week. Shoutout to the Cambodian Elders for having kites and letting us borrow them! I'm at the point now where literally anything that takes away from our normal schedule is the greatest thing ever. Also, shoutout to half our zone because they're leaving today and tomorrow! We're losing our Vietnamese-speakers, our Hmong-speakers, and all the Cambodians. That's like...half of our zone. But we get 18 new thai-speakers on Wednesday! We're so pumped to have more Thai missionaries (although we're secretly really jealous that our teachers will be spending more time with them instead of us now).

This week I'd like to talk a little bit about enduring trials. On thursday, I had a strong prompting all day that I needed to be praying for my family, although I had no idea why. It all made sense when I received a DearElder that evening that said that Ginger, my family's German Shepherd, had been put down. While the event itself wasn't a shock, it was still a pretty heavy emotional blow, and I'm still reeling in some ways. She was one of my best friends, my baby, and I already feel her absence. Saying goodbye never gets any easier, but I knew when I left home that I was sacrificing that. Maybe that doesn't seems like that big of a deal, but for me, it was huge. Being a missionary is truly a humbling experience. Just when I think I have given my all, more is asked of me and more weight is placed on my shoulders. The Lord has been teaching me some very powerful lessons lately about learning to rely on Him and I don't think I've learned it quite yet.

In an amazing talk entitled "Trust in the Lord" by Richard G. Scott, he said the following: "To exercise faith is to trust that the Lord knows what He is doing with you and that He can accomplish it for your eternal good even though you cannot understand how He can possibly do it...Your Father in Heaven and His Beloved Son love you perfectly. They would not require you to experience a moment more of difficulty than is absolutely needed for your personal benefit or for that of those you love." There's another talk by Elder David A. Bednar called "Bear Up Their Burdens with Ease" that talks about how to move on from tragedy and trials: "We are not and never need be alone. We can press forward in our daily lives with heavenly help. Through the Savior's Atonement we can receive capacity and strength beyond our own."

This work is hard, but it is the only work that truly matters in the end. Said the Prophet Joseph Smith, "Let us here observe, that a religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things never has power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation." This is the only Church on the Earth that has the restored fullness of Christ's gospel. I know that. I've always known, but probably never as strongly as I do now. I love you all!

--
Sister Zoller

living on a prayer

Getting through this week was hard, but I can now humbly say that I'm more than halfway through my nine weeks in the MTC! This week was all about prayer and keeping a constant conversation going with God all day, every day. Someone once made the observation here that we're a lot like the apostle Peter walking on the water to the Savior; and "when he Peter saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me." (Matthew 14:30) It was because Peter was distracted that he began to sink, because he looked around at the world around him and realized what a scary situation he was in. And in that instant after he began to sink, he cried out to the Lord. "And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him..." (Matthew 14:31). That's pretty much how this week has felt. When I keep up an ongoing conversation with the Lord throughout my day (in addition to praying on my knees and with my companion/investigators), I feel like I'm metaphorically hanging on to the Savior's arm in a world that I would never be able to face on my own. Even with all that, I often trip and get distracted, but gratefully, the Lord is ever-patient and merciful and willing to help me back up to try again and again and again.

On Wednesday we had the opportunity to serve as hosts in the MTC, which meant we helped all the new missionaries as they arrived with getting books and getting them settled into their rooms and classrooms. The first person I hosted was an international sister from Bombay. She spoke decent English but overall seemed very nervous being alone in a foreign country with just a medium-sized suitcase. I was humbled to talk with her and serve her because she sacrificed so much to come here, thousands of miles, to serve the Lord and do his will.

In addition to this wonderful sister, I hosted three elders and another sister. It was so touching to see the enthusiasm and anticipation in the eyes of the missionaries. One of the Elders I helped was going to Argentina, and as we were walking down the sidewalk with all his luggage, he quietly admitted his feelings of inadequacy. I almost dropped all his luggage to hug him right where he was. I opened my mouth and heard the words, "Elder, the Lord needs you here. He has called you. He loves you. I promise you you're doing the right thing." And that was all we said on that topic for the rest of the time until I put him on a bus to west campus. The coolest part of that experience, though, was that I didn't say any of those words. Those words were spoken by the spirit through me. I've had experiences like this many times in the MTC but it never ceases to amaze me to feel the power of God. I am humbled and grateful to be in a position to be the servant of the Lord.

Being a missionary has made me so aware of God's love for everyone in the missionary equation: the investigator, the member, the missionary, and the companion. Our purpose is to invite others to come unto Christ; that means EVERYONE! Once this week, in a moment of exasperation, I asked God, "what would you have me do?" and immediately I thought of a scene from Lord of the Rings where Eowyn asks her Uncle King Theoden the same question as he leaves her with the tremendous responsibility of ruling a kingdom. He puts his arms around her and says in response, "I would have you smile again." In spite of the darkness of the world, in spite of everything she had to do, her uncle (and father figure) just wanted her to be happy. Doesn't our Heavenly Father, who loves us infinitely, want the same thing for us? I know He wants that for all of us.

Friday was the 4th of July, obviously...I've never been the most into celebrating holidays but my companion more than made up for it with the most patriotic outfit and accessories. But that night was possibly the best night of my life thus far. We started the night off with a musical show that got us all hyped up because we have some insane talent here in the MTC. Then there was a devotional that brought the Spirit like crazy, and then we watched 17 Miracles, which I've heard loads about but never seen before. It's about the journey of the companies of Latter-Day Saints who crossed the plains in handcarts and the miracles that made it possible for them to arrive in the Salt Lake Valley. It was inspiring to see and remember the tremendous sacrifices that were made by those who went before us, but my favorite part was when the main character said, "I can't remember how many times I turned around to see who was pushing my handcart, but saw no one" and as the camera pans behind him it shows angels and people helping him by pushing his cart as he pulled it -- it is the same with us. God does not leave us alone, he sends help, though often we can't see it or even realize it until later.

Then we went and watched the fireworks for the Stadium of Fire! I've never seen a fireworks show that big, so I'm sure there were stars in my eyes the whole night, but as it came close to the finale I remembered that the last time I watched fireworks was in 2012, a few nights before my family and I left Wisconsin. At that time in my life, I had recently graduated high school. I was scared and felt purposeless; I did not know who I was or what I was going to do with my life. The future appeared dark and uncertain, and I did not know what to expect or what to do. Whether aloud or in my heart, in the form of a prayer or just a desperate wish, I begged that the next time I watched fireworks, I would be a different person, I would feel my life had purpose, and I would be happy. That night, at that time in my life, non of that seemed possible, but three nights ago I stood outside watching fireworks from the MTC on my way to Thailand, and I am a better person than I ever thought was possible then. God heard me. The Lord has been in the details of my life since its beginning, and I am and will be forever grateful for all He has done and continues to do for me. As I stood there watching the beautiful fireworks, I was hit with a wave of gratitude that overwhelmed me. I love the Lord and this gospel. The Lord has led me this far and he will not abandon me, now, or ever. And if He has done all that for me, don't you think He's done all that for you, too?

whoaaa....we're halfway there...

Another week! so technically we're not halfway through yet, we won't be until this thursday, but exactly five weeks from today we'll be flying out to Thailand! Bomb diggity.

This week we started learning how to read and write Thai script. We started on Tuesday and were basically left to our own devices to study and teach ourselves how to do it. It's AWESOME. I'm so dang slow but I can usually figure words out relatively quickly. I freaking love learning Thai.

On Tuesday evening we had our usual devotional but it was special because this week was the Mission President Seminar where all the new mission presidents come and get trained by the apostles and first presidency. At our devotional, there were six apostles sitting at the front! Elders Oaks, Christoffersen, Anderson, Bednar, Ballard, and Nelson. Elder Christoffersen was the only one to speak, but it was so powerful to feel the spirit of all those apostles in the same room as us! Elder Christoffersen talked about the worth of souls. What is the worth of a human soul? "The worth of a human soul is its capacity to become like God." There are no ordinary people in this world! He went on to say that if the worth of souls is great in the sight of God, it must be worthless in the eyes of Satan. Satan will do everything he can to make us feel worthless and ordinary. Recognize that when you feel that way, those feelings are not from God.

Most days we sit in class and have Thai spewed at us for 8 or more hours a day, but on Thursdays we have an hour and a half to do service in the MTC, usually by helping out with some of the more menial cleaning tasks. We love it because it's physical and we don't have to be sitting in class, but last week was more awesome than usual because we got to put up flags at the MTC! The sisters in our district put up 31 flags in the front and side of the MTC, from Peru to India to Canada to South Africa. And of course Thailand!

On our temple walk we ran into one of the sisters we know from Thailand. While the rest of the sisters in my district were talking to her, I started up a conversation with her companion, Hermana Ferro, and quickly learned she's from Peru and barely speaks English. Sister Nethercott and I talked to her for probably an hour and a half in Spanish and the rest of the night we were speaking "Spaiglish" (which is Spanish, Thai, and English). So fun. Hermana Ferro is speaking Spanish and English on her mission but there are four sisters in her district and they are native-speaking Korean, Thai, Mandarin Chinese, and Spanish. They can't communicate in any language other than English and most of them didn't know but a few words before they got here. I was so impressed with the sisters dedication to learning the language and persevering despite the enormous trial of the communication barrier. I know I can't imagine not being able to express my thoughts and ideas in English to my district. There are so many sacrifices made by missionaries to be here; we give everything we have and were before the mission to be who God wants us to be. "Greatness comes as you forget yourself and lose yourself in service to God."

I always feel like I never really mention any stories in my weekly letters but that's because it's the small moments in life that often bring the biggest memories. In the MTC, it's so easy to see the impact of a random act of service like opening a door for someone. I thrive on little moments like that here, like being able to work out every morning in the weight gym or biking a new record. When I start worrying about my ability to be a missionary and suddenly Elder Hilton will make some sassy comment and Elder Okimoto will start laughing and then we all start laughing. When Sister Herrmann and I are sitting in a lesson and suddenly our investigator makes a major personal breakthrough and starts feeling what we're saying instead of just listening. When we talk about favorite movies and somehow Elder Curtis and I end up leading a rendition of "Ain't No Mountain High Enough," or when we're all super frustrated with studying and suddenly our whole district is on the floor laughing about something really stupid or immature. In the words of a random note I got this week, "everything is gonna be alright. :)"

The Church is true...la iglesia es verdad...ศาสนาเป็นความจริง

all of our food. there are eight sisters and we all donated as much as we could to the cause. it was a huge success.

there was this spicy thai tuna that sister brown's mom sent to us! we were all a little apprehensive to try it but sister Alley, sister Mamea and I had the guts to do it and it turned out really good!

district pic!

sisters having fun pic!

In the last almost three weeks, we've had devotionals from Elder Quentin L. Cook, Elder M. Russell Ballard, Sister Sheri Dew and Sister Janice Kapp Perry. Because it's the new mission president conference for the next few days, we've had 14 of the 15 apostles on our MTC campus (we haven't seen really any of them though) and yesterday the Elders in our district had the opportunity to pass the sacrament in the same room as President Thomas S. Monson. This morning my companion and I were coming back from the temple and we totally saw President Henry B. Eyring! He waved to us from his car. Nooooo big deal...our lives are kinda made. ;)

We said goodbye to the older Thai elders this week! They actually just left today. We were all sad to see them go but excited to see them when we hit Thailand in six weeks and at zone conferences and stuff. Crazy how three weeks with people can make us feel so connected and close! That's mission life for ya.

Well, if I've noticed any patterns in my life, it's that really hard stuff leads to really awesome stuff. Sometimes they occur simultaneously. This week has been a week of the Spirit. I've received so many answers to prayers and questions in so many different ways and it's been physically exhausting because it's so spiritually intense. It's awesome.

The gift of tongues is real. As we put in the effort to speak the language all the time, we have been blessed to learn faster and feel the spirit more powerfully. I have been struggling to learn the word "special" for almost a week and was really frustrated that I could never remember it, but as I was sitting in a lesson on Saturday our investigator used it in a question and in that moment I learned the word and pronunciation and I have not forgotten it since. I have been sitting in lessons struggling to remember words or phrases to use and out of seeming nowhere the Spirit will bring a word to my mouth or a thought of what to say. I'm so grateful to be learning Thai.

All the sisters in our district have decided that we're going to do "Friday Night Food Parties" every friday night! We collect all the food we're sent and go crazy. This week's special was this "spicy Thai tuna" courtesy of Sister Brown's mom! We were all a little scared to try it but it turned out to be soo good! We're already pumped for next week. Apparently we have a bit of a reputation in our building of being the loudest district because we're always singing, laughing, and being generally happy and awesome. We're really cool with being gossiped about that way.

Sometimes when Sister Herrmann and I get bored during study we go outside and bear our testimonies in Thai to missionaries or employees to help us practice, and we've had so many good experiences come from that because even though no one can understand what we're saying (and we're probably butchering the words that we are saying), the Spirit is there and conveys the message anyways. As we were walking I felt impressed to share our testimonies with an older couple that were walking around campus but as we introduced ourselves we realized that they didn't speak English! They were the new mission president for the Argentina Rosario Mission and were there for training, so their English was broken and about as good as our Thai. We bore our testimonies in Thai and I was able to speak with them in Spanish afterwards! It was suuuuch a tender mercy for me because I LOVE Spanish and it was such a blessing to feel like I could still speak and understand it as well as I could (although I don't doubt that the spirit was there to help me as much as ever). The Church is true in every language, in every country, in every time and place. The Lord has given us the privilege of serving Him and furthering the work. 

Go watch "Missionary Work and the Atonement" on youtube. it's our district's favorite video.

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

Walking on sunshine....whaaaooo!

My awesome-sauce nametag

our district picture!

myself and my lovely khuu (companion)

Sawatdiikha! Today is my first P-day so here's my first big email! I've only been here for six days but soooo much has happened!

The first day I got here, we sang "We'll Bring the World His Truth" but they changed the words in the chorus from "We will be the Lord's missionaries" to "We are now the Lord's missionaries" and it was so powerful! I felt the spirit so strongly as I looked around the room and I finally felt the confirmation I've been wanting for so long that THIS is where I need to be and what I need to be doing, and every day since then I've received that confirmation again in countless ways.

In six days, we have taught two lessons to our new investigator completely in Thai and taught him how to pray and prayed with him, and we've given him a Book of Mormon! We study Thai for 6-8 hours in class every day and then we also have extra study time on our own. It's really structured and rule-oriented, but also we have a lot of freedom to structure our study in a way that will help us most. In our district (our class, of all the Thai missionaries that entered the same day) there are six elders and eight sisters, and we are soooo tight. We do everything together and we're always studying together and trying to help each other out. We're such overachievers on the language, we spend all our spare time trying to pick up new words and grammar rules from the other Thai district who has been here longer. The older Thai district keeps telling us to calm down and stop making them look bad because apparently we're much farther along than they were when they were five days in. We love it.

Our zone, which is a bunch of districts together, has around 60 missionaries speaking Thai, Vietnamese, Cantonese, and Cambodian, going all over the world where those languages are spoken. We always eat together and have (friendly) competitions during gym time.

My khuu (companion in Thai) is Sister Herrmann! I was so thrilled when I saw her. We met through the Sister Missionary Facebook group during winter semester this year, along with Sister Brown, who is in our dorm with us and her companion, Sister Nethercott. The four of us get on so great.

The best spiritual experience from this week was with our investigator, Txg. He's actually role-playing our investigator, he's really our other Thai teacher, but when we roleplay the feelings and experiences that we have are just as real as if we were teaching in the field. Phii Txg is Buddhist, a single dad with an 8-year-old daughter who has been crippled from birth, and he's had a really hard time taking care of her but he heard about Jesus Christ and the Plan of Happiness in our church and wants to know so badly how to get the light that he sees when we come to visit and share scriptures with him. We have some language barrier issues, naturally, but when my companion and I pray to have the spirit with us we go in and we can truly understand and communicate with him. We talk about faith a lot in the context of KNOWING things, but we often forget that faith starts with a simple desire to know the truth. When we taught Phii Txg to pray and he prayed for the first time, it was so simple and yet overwhelmingly powerful because he wants to know the truth so badly.

In my time here, I've come to realize more and more that everything I have and am is because of what God has blessed me with. I'm so blessed to have the language coming to me more easily because of all my experience with Spanish, but I never would have learned Spanish if I hadn't been led to take Spanish 101 last spring term at BYU (shoutout to Sarah and Maggie! I think of you girls all the time and how much you're going to LOVE the MTC/CCM!). Everything I thought I was sacrificing and giving up and having to suffer through has truly all been for my good.

Shoutout to Michael Perry and Brianna Fabiano for being my family and dropping me off at the MTC! Thaaaaaank you thank you. It meant a lot to me and helped me be less nervous than I would have been if I'd gone in by myself.

Extra shoutout to all the people I know who work here! I know seriously half the people working in the cafeteria and people on custodian crew and a few teachers too! It makes my whole day to see random wardies and cafeteria people.

And to anyone reading this, feel free to DearElder me! Please do! It's free for you besides the time that you put in and it makes my whole day. My address is on facebook and it's so easy!

Lots and lots of love,

Sidtaa Zoller

Na na na na...hey hey hey...goodbye!

(The following are the highlights from my farewell talk, given May 25, 2014, in a random ward in St. Louis because that's where my family moved last year! The theme was the conference talk "The Gospel to All the World" by Elder John B. Dickson.)

There's a scripture my roommate and I loved repeating last year: "And God said unto John, come forth and receive eternal life. But John came fifth, and won a toaster."

Okay, I'm kidding, that's obviously not a real scripture. I just really wanted an excuse to squeeze that joke in. I don't really know anyone in this ward, and none of you really know me, so this makes this farewell talk kinda unique. So here's a little bit about me, to put the rest of my talk in context. I was born and raised in Wisconsin, and I've been going to BYU for the past two years, studying something yet to be determined. I got my mission call four months ago to serve the people in Thailand, Myanmar and Laos for the next 18 months. I've learned that in my life, the Lord sometimes manifests His will through my desires, and that's how I knew I wanted to go on a mission shortly after the announcement of the mission age change back in 2012. Based on all the things that needed to happen before I left, it should have been impossible for me to go, but when the Lord wants something done, he provides a way. So here I am!

There's an awesome talk from the April 2013 General Conference called "The Gospel to All the World" by Elder John B. Dickson. He says "From the time of the organization of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in 1830, the Church has moved steadily across the world from nation to nation, culture to culture, people to people, on the Lord's calendar and in His time."

I've never been more grateful for this than I was when I opened my mission call to Thailand. Thailand is considered a developing third-world country. I would argue that we don't really know what poverty is in this country. But there are families in Thailand who live in three-sided shacks and depend on their 8-year-old daughters to bring in money from boxing matches. There are families in Thailand who have to send their children away to be able to support the rest of the family. That isn't something I can fathom. Thai, the official language of Thailand, is a tonal language, which basically means that the same word or syllable can mean up to five different things depending on the tone with which you say it (and I'll be honest, those tones all sound the same to me right now). 95% of people in Thailand are Buddhist, a religion that does not recognize a Creator God. So, to say that Thailand is different from America is like saying that fire is different from water. How can I go to teach a people who deal with a set of challenges I will never face, whose culture is so different from mine, and, more importantly, whose language is so utterly foreign to me?

The answer is that the Gospel of the Church of Jesus Christ is just as universal as it is personal! The best example of this is the Atonement of Jesus Christ. He suffered for each of us, personally, but his sacrifice applies to every sentient being who ever lived and who ever will live. But just because it's for everyone doesn't take away its significance for me as a person. Universal, but still personal. And that's my favorite thing about the gospel. Hands down. The gospel is so, so simple; it's here to bring us happiness! Our beliefs can be summed up in the Articles of Faith, just thirteen sentences. So why do we worry ourselves over anything else? The culture of the members of the Church may vary, but we all live and share the blessings of the same gospel, and that is just so cool.

The purpose of all missionaries is to "bring others unto Christ." What does that mean? Well, there are a hundred ways to interpret that statement, but remember, the gospel is simple. And simply put, Christ is charity, the purest form of love there is, and if Christ is love and my job is to bring others unto Christ, then my job is to love them. Obviously, that can be done in an unlimited number of ways, but when I remember that, it allows me to focus on what really matters and forget about all the silly little things that don't matter.

One of the coolest things I've learned is that we are all called to serve exactly where we are. You are not random. You are here for a reason, in this specific area. Maybe you can touch a lot of lives, maybe just one. But isn't it worth the one? Christ sure thought so, that's why he came down and sacrificed himself for us.
This gospel is true. I've learned that for myself. It's brought me so much hope and happiness, and I'm so excited and grateful to be able to go share the happiness that it has brought me with people half a world away!