Hello KhrccpKhrua!
Thank you thank you thank you for all of the amazing letters
and emails! You all look so great! I especially like the yardwork that Mom
is doing! And Sam and Dan, you are some intense corn shuckers! haha Thank you
for the cute picture of you two, I love your sign. I love you, too! :)
Daniel, way to go on your spelling test! That is so good!!
The food here is just fine. They have lots of cereal and cookies, which you
would like. They also have a milk dispenser and a chocolate milk
dispenser. Last night they had macaroni and cheese. You will do just
fine here when you're a missionary. I like the salad bar and I usually eat
cottage cheese and tomatoes. As much as I love it, it is getting kind of old...
now I need to start being a little more creative! I'm so excited that school is
almost over! Wahoo! What are you going to do on your first day of summer? My
roommates are really, really nice! I love them all and we have a really fun
time together!
Samuel, the Empty C is going very, very well! And the Thigh
is getting very good! hahaha I'm so glad that you gave Profe the blog link!
Tell her hello from me! It's funny because when I first got here I was sitting
outside of a Spanish classroom and I could understand everything the teacher
was saying. I thought to myself how much easier it would be to go Spanish
speaking! Now, however, I feel way more comfortable speaking in Thai (I think I
know more in Spanish still, but Thai comes easier), and it feels weird to teach
in English! Crazy!! How'd the track season wrap up? Also, I heard you gave a
really good talk! Way to go! When do you get your driver's license!?
Mom, thanks for the Dorothy quote, I love it! And Sam and
Mom, you look so good at the Luau! How did it go? That sounds like so
much fun! When I opened this email a sister missionary sitting next to me
said, "Wow, is that your brother? He's cute!!!" I agree!
So, this week has been so great! We've all been sick with
coughs and colds, but I think we're all on the mend now. Nothing bad enough to
put us out, though.
On Sunday all the sisters in our
district sang for church. We sang "Lead Kindly Light." Such a pretty
song, however, it probably didn't sound very pretty because half of us had
colds, my ears were plugged, and my voice was croaky. We probably sounded
like a bunch of frogs. But, no one cares.
I didn't get chosen to talk. This week's talk topic was
the Gift of the Holy Ghost. Over the last few weeks all the devotional speakers
talk about "sanctifying yourselves." So, I decided to study this a
little more and it makes for an interesting study! I would suggest it!
After church we meet as a district with a member from the
branch presidency and two companionships practice teaching a 10 minute lesson
to everyone on the topic of the week. So, Sis N and I went first and we taught
about the Holy Ghost. It was weird to teach a lesson in English- first time
that I have since I've been here. I realize it is much easier to be simple and
clear when you don't know very much vocab! But, we got some good tips and pointers from
our counselor in the branch presidency.
This week for one hour of our class time I was chosen to
pretend to be an investigator while the other district's teacher pretended to
be a missionary and teach me a lesson. This is called "demonstrate teaching."
I was kind of nervous because that's an hour of being taught and expected to
answer/ask questions in Thai. But, it went fine and was actually really fun. I
love when the teachers demonstrate teaching because it's really helpful to see
the techniques they use and the ideas that they have.
This week Sis. Tilley and Sis. Greenwood asked Sis N and me
to pretend to be newly converted members and come and share our
"stories" with their investigator. We pretty much just bore testimony
of how the gospel of Jesus Christ had changed our lives and so on. This
investigator (Bro. Burgess) has a pretend smoking/ drinking problem. When I was
sharing my testimony/story, I told him that I, too, had had smoking problems,
but through the help of the missionaries and the atonement I was able to
overcome my addiction. Apparently I am a really good actor because after the
lesson Bro. Burgess thought that I actually had been a smoker! I told him
of course I had not, but he legitimately thought I had been a smoker! So
funny. And offensive!
TRC this week was great. That is one of my favorite
things. We get really helpful feedback from the RM's and it is so fun. Sis N
and I are doing a much better job of teaching together and we never go in with
notes or even a lesson outline anymore! Starting to feel more real.
This week's devotional speakers were
Elder Nash and Elder Zwick. They were great. I especially loved Elder Zwick's
because he talked about developing Christ-like attributes. Elder Nash talked
about the Plan of Salvation (I think) as sort of a prep for us to watch Sis
Monson's funeral. We watched it on Sunday and it was such a beautiful funeral.
Sister Dibb, President Uchtdorf, and President Eyring gave such uplifting
talks. I got a lot out of it. She sounds like an amazing lady. Did you get to
watch it? Also, how was the video on President Monson?
A few days ago we practiced street contacting within our
district. We contacted Sis G and Sis T and they are now weekly investigators.
It's kind of fun because we will teach each other until we leave. The elders
contacted us and they will teach us. Our first lessons are on Friday.
Raintree is now open for missionaries, but I think we are
safe from being sent there! I think there are Indonesian missionaries over there.
So excited for NY trip! Wahooooooooo! Take some good
pictures!
I love the JFSmith quote you sent me. What a great thought!
I love you all so much!
Sister Stevenson
