MTC Week 2

We finally got pictures this week!  Jake is doing great and has been blessed with a great district.  He seems to be settling into a routine and feeling more confident about learning the Thai language.

"Hello!  Saawaadii!!  This has been a pretty good week and much better than the last one because I'm getting use to life here at the MTC.  Not much has happened, but I have to tell you a sad story pertaining to the World Wide Broadcast.  On Sunday morning around 9:30, we went to a combined Sacrament meeting for the missionaries in the choir.  The director made an announcement that there was a problem with the number of seats they had for the broadcast.  Apparently, there were a lot more members attending than they had planned for and they didn't have enough seats for all the members of the choir.  They asked that all the missionaries that had only been to two practices to please step down.  I fell into that group because I wasn't here long enough to go to more than two practices, so I was not in the choir singing in the broadcast.  But at least you all watched the broadcast and received spiritual guidance, so I guess it wasn't all that bad."

"Nike, our first investigator, is now our teacher.  His real name is Brother Phan.  He is Vietnamese but speaks Thai because he served a mission there.  He is really cool but speaks really fast and that causes so much trouble with me because he is a lot harder to understand than Brother Olson.  He teaches much different as well.  However, I feel that I learn a lot better from him than anyone else because he teaches by the spirit.  He always bears his testimony at the end of the lesson and I think that is really cool.  He is by far my favorite teacher and I feel that I can talk to him.  We now have two new investigators.  Yesterday we taught a guy named Sam (Brother Phan) and today we taught a guy named Joe (Brother Olson) and it was scary.  We cannot use the script anymore, so we have to teach with what we know already.  I don't think I give myself enough credit because we actually don't do too bad.  We still struggle a lot in the lessons and there are some awkward pauses, but all in all, we do pretty good.  All the credit goes to the spirit though because without the spirit it would be terrible."

"My district is way awesome! They remind me of my friends back home. They are way funny and like to goof off way late, which isn't good, but ehh.  Elder Vance is from California and played water polo.  He is always wanting me to go do ab workouts with him...haha yeah right!  Elder Beatty is really smart and already knows the whole Thai alphabet.  He makes the rest of us look like idiots, but he is always willing to help us.  I'm lucky that he is here because he likes to work out, so he takes Elder Vance away so that I don't have to go lifting with him.  Thank Goodness!!  Elder Watkins is a baseball player and loves to goof around, but also gets what needs to be done.  He does the most hilarious Yoshi impression.  He is so funny.  Elder Keller is from Alaska and plays soccer.  Haha, wouldn't you know that even when I go some place different, there are still soccer players in my life.  He probably is my favorite because he wants to follow the rules and is usually the one that I talk to the most.  Awesome kid.  Elder Crump is very cool.  He is great at memorizing and always helps me out because I have trouble with that.  He is also very funny and says hilarious things thoughout the day that makes everyone laugh.  I have been really blessed with a great district to help me.  They are all really good people."

"My Thai is coming along.  I still struggle with it, but I can understand some words and can speak a lot of gospel words.  I can bear my testimony and say my prayers in Thai.  I'm not dreaming in Thai yet, but hopefully I will.  I am just starting to learn how to spell, but that is still far away.  It is a tough language, but I am impressed on how much I know in just two weeks.  Mom, you should try to learn Thai again so we can talk about everyone when I get home and they won't even know what we are saying! hahahahaha!!  In all, the Lord is blessing me and I'll have good days and bad, but mostly it's been a great learning experience."

"The Provo Temple is closed from now until August 12th!  Talk about a major downer.  Oh well, I'll just have to wait two years.  The MTC food still tastes bad.  It all tastes like it has been microwaved and the eggs made my whole district sick one day.  I usually eat really healthy salads with Elder Vance everyday, so no need to worry about me."

"Janice Kapp Perry came to speak to us and she was so funny.  Her talk was fantastic!  She talked about how we can be sanctified in the field.  She also talked about how good music brings the spirit.  I would listen to my ipod more, but half my room would rather not listen to music, so I don't.  At one point in her talk, she shared about how her husband's first words to her was in the music room at school.  He leaned over and said, "I think that your lips could be used for something a lot better than playing the clarinet." hahahahaha  Then he got up and grabbed her face and kissed her in front of everyone! sooooo funny!!  All the Elder missionaries stood up and gave a standing ovation.  She told us that she made a family song and it was awesome!  We need to make a family song.  The devotionals here are for sure the best part of the MTC."

"I miss you all so much.  Sometimes I lie in bed and just think about home, family and friends, and then I stop immediately because it makes me sad and I need to be positive here.  I heard that Sam Holmes got called to serve in Thailand and that is so cool!!  I really want her to write to me, so I can talk to her about it.  Letters are very special and I want everyone to write me because I keep them and look at them every night.  I want pictures of my friends as well as family.  The pictures you sent made my day so much better just seeing all of your faces."

"I love you very much and keep writing!"

Elder Jacob Smith

Elder Smith in the MTC

The District

Official Member Card

The room with Elders Vance, Watkins and Crump.

1st Companions - Elder Smith and Elder Vance

Elders Vance, Beatty, Keller, Watkins, Crump, and Smith

Missionary work is #1!

MTC Week 1

We were lucky to receive a letter by mail and an email from Jake this week.  Learning the language seems to be his main focus and challenge.  He included a note written to his Dad for Father's Day.  He also wanted us to send some supplies and snacks and asked for more letters from friends and family.  The letters are a source of comfort and strength for him.

"Hey! or should I say Sawaadii Khab!!  The MTC is what I expected... hard and challenging.  I don't quite understand the teacher, but I'm getting better at it every day.  When I got here, they gave me a HUGE bag of supplies to help learn the gospel and language.  I've already started to use my backpack.  Some things are helpful and others don't help me learn a thing.  I just want to start learning the Thai alphabet symbols, so I can read it.  I feel that I will understand better when I can read actual Thai.  Tell everyone to write me because it calms me down while I'm freaking out everyday.  I know I'll be fine, but this first week is hard for sure. We have a temple trip on Wednesday that I'm really excited for.  That is a place where I can feel real peace other than Sundays."

"I told you about my companion Elder Vance and you already met him. He is really fun to have as a companion.  He is district leader and so I have to get the mail with him and do all the stuff that they have to do.  I love my district and we get along so great, perhaps too great, because we stay up too late talking.  That's mostly because we have so many things we need to do before lights out.  We are always with each other and laughing."

"Here is an update on my week.  Friday was interesting.  We had gym time scheduled but we had to go get our immunization shots for Thailand, so we didn't really get gym time at all.  We had our first lesson with the investigator and it was terrifying and we did terrible which made it even worse.  We just sat there, read our script wrong and then left without even making another appointment.  OH, that was the worst thing ever!  Talk about a total downer, however it made me want to work harder because we have to teach him in Thai every day until we go to Thailand.  All we do is read from a script and it is just the worst because I feel like we need to get to know him, but we don't know how to ask the questions or understand what he will say back.  His name is Nike.  Cool name I know.  You should have named me that!"

"Saturday was the same in schedule; study, study, study, language, study, study, teach Nike, read Thai to Nike.  We tried to teach him about the Restoration and it actually didn't go too bad.  We seemed to teach it well even though we didn't understand a single thing he said.  The days are super long.  I got a letter this morning and by midday, I felt like I got it two days ago.  I feel like I've been here so long and then I look back and realize it's only been two days!  I can't wait to get out of here already.  The food isn't great and makes me gassy and I can't understand anything.  Don't get me wrong, I love to do the Lord's work, but I want them to teach us the language for at least 4 weeks and then start giving us the investigators."

"I now understand why everyone always says, "wait until Sunday," because it was awesome!!  It's really a day when we get to rest and think about the Lord without the distractions of everyday MTC life.  It was nice just to be able to recharge.  We had priesthood meeting where they talked a lot about what our purpose as a missionary is and how to be effective.  The AC was broken and it was so hot in the room for sacrament and priesthood.  It was still great to partake the sacrament and just be able to relax.  We heard a devotional from Steven B. Allen and he was super funny.  He used a lot of the mormon commercials in his talk that we got to watch.  TV! it was great!!  Plus the things he said were so amazing that I could really feel the spirit.  Afterwards, we went to the movie room and watched, "The Testaments."  Best movie for sure!!  Then it was off to bed."

"Monday we had a service assignment where we go to another building and clean it.  My companion and I luckily got to take out the trash and mop.  No toilets, Whoot!  We went to class and learned a lot of Thai and I have the prayer memorized! Yay!!  We're learning some new Thai stuff on bearing our testimonies.  We finally were able to understand our teacher today because he was teaching us fundamentals of teaching and it is really important for us to know, so he spoke English.  Then we had to teach our investigator again.  We tried to teach without the script, but that was a bad choice.  It went terrible!  Worse than the first day.  We had no idea what was going on.  At one point we sat there for 7 minutes not saying anything that made sense.  What makes it even worse was that we had to teach the investigator again the next morning which gave us no time to prepare another lesson."

"Miraculously the next day, I kinda just whipped out a lesson in Thai almost all by myself.  Let me just say that the lesson went well and we were able to get through it.  I was even able to ask some things that I knew he answered!!  I still don't know what he said, but I did it!  I also got him to pray and taught him how to, which was a plus.  It was still on script however.  We've made a goal to slowly get off script.  We then had gym time and Elder Keller and I went to play some soccer.  This is where Tori and Chance and all my soccer friends will be proud...I MADE A GOAL!!!!!!  Yup, like a champ!  Look out Thailand, Elder Smith is coming your way!!!"

"We practiced singing in the Marriott Center and I'm singing tenor, aaahhhh! too high!  We had a devotional there as well by Brother Robert C. Gay.  He talked a lot on missionary work and said that we need to not worry because we were ready before we came.  He said that it's not anyone else's testimony that matters, it's only ours that matters and that was awesome.  After that, we had a district devotional review and Brother Callister shared an amazing testimony that raised our spirits."

"I miss you all and love you with all my heart.  I think of you guys all the time.  By the way, I joined the choir with Elder Vance.  It's way fun, but takes up a lot of time.  I will be singing in the world wide broadcast for the church called "Work of Salvation".  It's on Sunday, June 23rd.  You can get more information about it on the LDS website.  Don't forget to watch for me."

Elder Jacob Smith

The First Letter!

We were so excited to receive a letter in the mail today.  It sure made our day!

"I made it through my first day at the MTC!  Let me tell you... I am overwhelmed.  Funny thing though, my companion is Elder Vance!  The Elder we talked to at the Provo Temple.  He is a cool kid.  He is from California and really eager to serve on a mission.  Luckily, he is just as ready as I am with the language.  Also Elder Beatty, who we met at the travel clinic, is in my district.  My district seems so cool!  Everyone is really nice and just awesome people.  My companion and I are getting along great."

"The MTC, WOW!  It's crazy the first day and I'll admit... I'm very nervous, but I have faith that the Lord will help me.  Plus come on, it's only the first day right?  Dallon's little skit about the first day is pretty accurate.  The language is hard, but not impossible.  I'm super happy to be here and can feel the spirit strongly.  I feel like I don't have everything I need... a notebook, stamps.  I think I'll get them from the bookstore.  I am feeling that there is so much stuff to do and not enough time.  Everything is just thrown at you all at once.  I really need to lose myself in the work because my head is all over the place."

"Second day was crazy.  I understand more, but it is still difficult.  I did understand the teacher more which I am really thankful for.  We started learning how to say our prayers in Thai and it's great, but difficult.  I'm getting it though.  Our goal is to start saying our prayers without the booklet by Monday and I think I can do it."

"My District Leader happens to be my companion, Elder Vance.  My district is: Elder Vance, Elder Beatty, Elder Keller, Elder Crump, Elder Watkins, Sister Bentley, Sister Norrell, Sister Downs, and Sister Jackson.  My Branch President is Brother Jackson.  They are all so cool.  My Branch President interview was today.  He said that I speak positively and have a very strong testimony.  He hugged me and said that I will do great things.  It really gave me some strength for the MTC."

"Oh man, I already miss all of you so much, but I'm not going to cry my first night, so HA!  I really do miss you all and I love you so much.  I don't know how I'm going to survive here.  I feel like I know nothing that is going on, but I guess I'll get use to it.  So far, I have seen Jake Stepan, Chelsey Tait and Peter Funero here."

"Hey, I love you all and I'm going to miss you for the next two years, but I want you to know that you will always be in my heart and I'll always keep you with me."

Elder Jacob Smith

"P.S. - My p-days are on Wednesdays"

And the journey begins...

Elder Smith's last wave from the MTC curbside.  He was so ready!