Sister Lahti's Adventures in Thailand

Hi I am here in Bangkok now about to head off to me new area, Chaing Mai! Everyone says it is the promised land. I have a GREAT trainer named Sister Khamvongsa and she is from Laos! Maybe I will pick up some Lao... ...I am so excited to be here even though I have no voice. Sister Lahti COMMENTARY FROM HER FATHER: The mission president sent an email with a few pictures Her companion Sister Khamvonga President and Sister Johnson   Newly arrived missionaries Notice on MAIL from the Mission Office To better ensure safe delivery: ·       Use this address: 1645/6 New Phetchburi Road Makkason, Ratchathewi Bangkok, 10400 Thailand ·       Always list missionary’s FIRST and LAST NAME .  This prevents confusing missionaries with same or similar names ·       Use USPS, Air Mail or Priority Mail  or your countries equivalent .  When shippin...

Missionary Life is the Best Life Last week in the MTC! I probably won't email you next week since I will be on my way to Thailand, so next time I email you I will be in THAILAND! It was a pretty uneventful week, so I will keep it short so you can get back to Thanksgiving prep! We got our flight plans this week! We leave the MTC in Provo on Monday morning at 3am and get to Thailand at 11:40 on Tuesday...maybe I will finally catch up on my journal writing during the long flights haha!  Thanksgiving is this week! We are going to have some cool devotionals and take part in humanitarian projects here in the MTC. I love Thanksgiving because it is a time to reflect on all of the wonderful blessings God has given us. Once we realize how blessed we are, we need to reach out and help those who don't have as much!  The church does a really great job with helping those in need, especially with the many recent natural disasters.  This article  talks about some...

Fun week! Here is what happened.... 1. NAMETAGS We got our Thai name tags this week! I will attach photos below because they are super cool. And I can actually read it, so that is awesome!  2. Volleyball I have gotten way better at volleyball here because we play it almost everyday, but it is still not my forte. People always clap and cheer when I get the ball over the net because they are in shock. 4 Square is awesome as usual. We have fun here at the MTC!  3. BABY THAI So we got more missionaries in our zone this week and we welcomed 10 new Sisters and 5 new Elders! 6 of the Sisters and 1 of the Elders are going to Thailand and we were really excited to welcome them and reflect on what it was like when I first got here.  4. International Hosting! We got to host the new international missionaries this week, which means we got to check them in and get them settled at the MTC! I hosted 8 sisters this week which is a ton. I had some from Hong Kon...

Well hello! It is November! I go to Thailand this month!  1. THAI So Thai is REALLY hard! But it is okay, I have 3 more weeks here to learn it and then I am off to Thailand and it should come a lot quicker there! But the cool thing about Thai is that it doesn't sound foreign anymore. I don't know much, but I know enough to pick up what our teachers are saying so that is great. It is really nice that there are no tenses in Thai. It almost makes up for the fact that reading in Thai takes forever!  2. New Missionaries! We had 2 new Laotian speaking missionaries join our zone this week, and  tomorrow  we have 10 new sisters!!! 6 Thai speaking, 4 Khmer speaking (spoken in Cambodia). We are excited to have some more sisters in the zone!  3. Fun stuff! For Halloween last week we dressed up with whatever we could find in our room and went trick or treating to the German sisters on the floor which was fun! I was a pirate. I bought a tiny copy of the Boo...

Hi everyone, another week has come and gone and what a week it has been! What has Sister Lahti been up to this week? Pretty much the same old thing but lets read about the highlights!! 1. SCRIPT We have been learning script which is crazy hard! They don't have spaces between words in Thai and you have to break it up syllable to figure out what the tones are because tone is determined by syllable. THEN you can figure out the word (hopefully I know it, most likely do not)! Plus there are around 80 letters in the alphabet so it is always an adventure. It is really hard but I am super grateful for my teachers (shout out to Sister Hogge and Brother Tirrell!!!) who help me read and give me pep talks and wonderful advice! I feel like I am in kindergarten learning to read again, but it is very satisfying to read in Thai. OH I figured out what my name will be in Thai so I will attach a picture of what it looks like below! Also, a funny thing with the grammar: if you want to say y...

Another week has passed already?? I feel like I don't remember what I did this week so maybe as I email I will remember haha 1st off, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY FAVORITE BROTHER GEHRIG! I love you sooo much and I hope you had a great day!!! Last Wednesday I got to host the new missionaries who came to the MTC! We got to pick them up when they were dropped off here and get them settled in. Crazy to think that was me four weeks ago! Time flies. I have learned so much since then! We started learning script this week! That means we will actually be able to read Thai eventually and that is crazy cool, even though it is starting off super slowly.  We got a new classroom! We were in one of the old buildings but we got moved to one of the new, recently dedicated buildings. I miss the old classroom, the new one kind of feels like a downgrade because there is no view and we can't hang our Thai flag on the wall :( but the new building is SUPER nice!  Other than that, I...

Great week in the MTC with plenty of highs and lows!!! Lots to say so just read the bold headings and look at pics if you don't feel like getting an insiders view on my life (I promise I won't judge I would probably do the same thing). Here we go...... 1. MTC New Building Dedication! As some of you may know, they recently built some new buildings here at the MTC and they are GORGEOUS!! Absolutely stunning. I will include some pics (which can't do it justice). I had the privilege of singing in a special choir during the dedication ceremony. We sang "Hark All Ye Nations" and it was such an amazing experience!  President Eyring ,  Elder Oaks ,  Bonnie Oscarson ,  Joy Jones , and some other people were there so that was REALLY COOL! The spirit was so strong there and it was just another confirmation that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is God's church on the earth today and that being a missionary is the BEST THING EVER because I get to b...