Sister Hammon: Week 8 - Last week in America! (And a happy birthday to Elder Andersen)

I really can't believe that this is my last email from the MTC. It feels like ages ago that I came in but I still don't feel old enough to be leaving!

ELDER ANDERSEN

Last Tuesday we had a visit from Elder Andersen...on his birthday! He had about 3000 birthday wishes when we sang to him so how could that not be the best day ever? It was streamed to 6 MTC's worldwide and it was incredible! He talked a lot about believing in miracles and how there are "elect" people waiting in every city, you just have to have the faith that they are there. This week has been a lot of faith building in devotionals and with our teachers. I am SO excited to head out and find the elect and I couldn't feel more blessed that I have the opportunity to do so!

PEOPLE

I can't really explain just how blessed I am to be in the district I am in with the teachers that we have. I LOVE them. We are Sister Painter's last MTC group ever, so she has been breaking all sorts of rules to spend more time with us/make us happy (She definitely brought us Beto's but you didn't hear it from me) Brother Hartman and her are SO inspirational that I can't help but want to fly to Thailand right after one of their lessons. They gave an amazing lesson on faith and Brother Hartman shared a story with one of his areas. Originally it hadn't had a baptism in months, but he was fairly new and someone told him he was so lucky to be going to that are because they had so much success! Immediately the area exploded! Him and his companion each got over 100 phone numbers in one week and had around 6 baptisms each from that batch. "We believed it was that, so it became that." I sincerely believe that what we believe is what we achieve, so I am challenging you all to believe in something you thought you could never do, because if a mission teaches you anything it is that you can do hard things.

THAI

Again, it is getting better everyday! I really focused on reading this week and I have definitely seen the benefits because of it. I can read a lot faster (even if it isn't always correct) So when you read in Thai you are sounding everything out super slow, and words are usually pretty long, so when you get to a word it goes like this (I'll do it in English so you can understand) "Hea ven l-- OH! I know this one!! It's Heavenly Father!" And then you get super excited and move on to the next 20 words you don't understand. It's basically like a puzzle that you don't have all the pieces to but when you do find a piece you feel like a champion. Especially when you sound out a harder word that you understand! At that point you really just deserve a gold medal.

LEAVING

We got our flight plans on Friday! On Monday at 4:30 AM we leave. SLC to LA, LA to Hong Kong, Hong Kong to BANGKOK! We will get there Tuesday around midnight Thailand time. Today we have been trying to pack and get things finalized. We just weighed our books and they weigh....30 POUNDS! Haha our entire district is freaking out about the weight, especially because our carry on can only be 15 pounds. WE ARE SO EXCITED! It feels surreal, but I couldn't be more ready to hit Thailand running. My language is simple but "through small and simple things are great things brought to pass" So bring it Thailand, I'm ready! (This is the part of the email where you picture that scene in Emperor's New Groove where he says "BRING IT ONNNNN" really loud as they fall down off a waterfall, I am currently Cuzco)

Thank you all for the love and support. This will be a crazy adventure but I am so lucky to have so many people standing behind me! I love you all and the next time you hear from me I will be in Thailand!! (and the only white person within 30 miles)

Much much love,

Sister Hammon

flight plans!!!

Sister Painter brought us Beto's!

How cute are we?

Elder Oakes prays in the weirdest positions so I decided we needed to capture it

We finally got our picture of us with the Consul General..man that fag looks good, there are NO wrinkles!T

So the program the church has to learn languages is T.A.L.L. and when you go to the lab you have to write on the board, we came back (the shortest in the class) to find this...