Ashley Peterson and Forrest Scoggins, this email title is
for you. :)
So I'm kinda short on time because we had temple service
this morning and didn't get back to the MTC until noon. We cleaned some
of the chandeliers - we had a couple mini heart attacks taking them down.
But they were so beautiful and just being in the temple was something I have
missed. As soon as we walked into the temple, I was overcome with peace
and happiness. I'm going to miss going to the temple for the next 16
months, but I am so grateful for the witness that I have that the temple is the
house of God and that His Spirit abides there abundantly, even when
construction and maintenance is going on. We are praying so hard for the
permission to be able to go one more time when it reopens on Monday since it
will be our last time doing temple work for 16-22 months.
Just a few items of business:
I am leaving Monday night, so after then I will no longer be able to receive
letter to my MTC address and I will no longer be able to receive
dearelder.com. This is a service mainly provided through the MTC and is not
available for my mission so if you use it, I will never know. :)
Well, this week was actually kind of uneventful. We
got our travel plans and that was exciting! We'll be in Thailand on
Wednesday (Thailand time) after leaving Salt Lake City Airport at 10 pm. There are 22 Thais
total in our party and we are on ALL the same flights. Let's just say I
feel sorry for any passengers who are uncomfortable with missionaries!
It's going to be fun time for sure :)
Another exciting thing that happened this week was that I
got to call home in order to avoid getting my blood typed! All 22 Thais
were called up to the travel office at the same time. All I could think
is that I did NOT want to get reassigned. It turned out not being that
big of a deal - we just had to fill out paperwork that we already did with our
visa applications, except for some reason they needed our Blood Type on our
Work Permit sheet? So pretty much all of us got permission to call for 5
minutes to see if our parents knew what it was. So yep, I got to call
home! It was exciting after the nervousness and desire to cry from
excitement passed, I realized that there was nothing to worry about and then I
had no idea what to say on the phone! But it definitely made my day.
:) So the lady in the travel office still wanted me to get my blood
drawn, but I talked the nurse out of it. Sister Downs just knew I was going
to try my hardest to keep all my blood in my body, and I succeeded!
I saw a couple of people I know this week! I was Elder
Brown again for the last time on Saturday, and I also saw Jon Belyeu in the
cafeteria when he was taking his break from working grounds crew at the
MTC! It was a nice surprise :) Cat (the khon Thai from Issan that
we taught in TRC a couple weeks ago) now lives in our building! She got
here on Wednesday and is going to California on her mission!! We enjoy seeing
her and learning random Thai phrases from her when we get ready for bed in the
bathroom each night. One of my favorites is "Phayayaam thii nii,
sambra thii nan" or "try here, succeed there". :)
Another great moment: A random elder came into our
classroom asking if we knew a different Elder. All of us turned around
and said "May!" which means no in Thai, and then we all
realized that he looked so confused because he doesn't speak Thai.
Oops!
A thought I had on Sunday when watching a Joseph Smith video
on lds.org:
When he went to the Sacred Grove to pray about what church to join, he knelt on
the ground and as he started to offer his prayer, he was seized upon by an
unseen dark force. It took all his strength to continue his prayer, and
that is when God the Father and the Son appeared to him. If he had not
first felt the darkness, would he have really felt the same when the light
came? Can we ever really know happiness until we know darkness
first? How much sweeter is the light when we have been wading in darkness
before? I am constantly reassured in life that we have trials for a
reason - that everything happens for a reason. That the people who come
into our lives do not do so coincidentally. I do NOT believe in coincidences,
because I know that God is in the details of our lives, no matter how
insignificant we may think they are. I know that each of my friends and
people in my district, and even my family are people that God knew I needed and
they are all people I can learn different things from.
Another thing I learned this week is
the importance and power of a specific prayer. Monday Sister Downs and I
were having trouble preparing our lesson for Phii Dxg and we just weren't
seeming to get anywhere. So we went to a different room, knelt down and
prayed. We told Heavenly Father what we were thinking about teaching and
we told him that we really just wanted to teach what Phii Dxg needed to hear
and learn about. We ended our prayer, got up and looked at the pamphlet
we were teaching from and the thing that we both agreed on in about 20 seconds
was the Atonement. We narrowed down our topic and we taught a very
spiritual lesson Tuesday morning. The language aspects of it were not
quite so good, but the spirit was definitely there regardless of our language
abilities. We found some concerns of his and we found out that his wife
had died 2-3 months ago from cancer. I was overcome with such love for
him and I was so glad that we had already prepared a way to explain to him that
there was hope because even though she did not accept the gospel in this life,
she will still have the chance to learn and choose for herself even though she
is no longer on this earth. All of this is possible because of the great atoning
sacrifice of the Savior. I loved every minute of that lesson because I
felt that we were helping him come to know Christ and I could see the hope and
joy in his eyes as we tried to explain to him that he could be with his family
forever. It was our last lesson with Phii Dxg, and I was so glad that it
ended the way it did.
Also on prayer, on Sunday we had
mission conference and as one of the speakers was talking about specific
prayers, I had a thought that basically said something along the lines of
"Do you not have enough faith in God to believe that he has the ability to
perform miracles in your life as a result of specific prayers?" It
was almost a reprimanding thought, but it always seem to be the stern
impressions that really get the point across for me. God does and will
answer specific prayers. He already knows what the desires of our hearts
are, but when we express them, we become more aware of how they are truly
coming to pass right before our eyes.
On Sunday we also had a devotional from Jenny Oaks Baker, a
world famous LDS violinist. She talked about spiritual gifts we are
given, and my favorite quote from her was "All gifts should be
administered through charity". We are each given spiritual gifts
that benefit us and that will help us help others. I love thinking about
all the gifts I am given and all the ones I may receive for the benefit of
others, and when we share our talents and gifts, we are showing Heavenly Father
that we are thankful for our gifts. I am running out of time, but
remember to always share what you are given.
This is my last email from the United States! I do not
think I will have a chance to email or write letters next week because we will
be getting there in the middle of the week, but know that I love you all and
would love to hear from you once I get to Thailand! Well, I am out
of time, but know that I love you all!
Love,
Sister Norrell
Sister Norrell
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