No Words

Hi to my beautiful family!!!

I love you all so much!!

There is no way I can adequately explain our trip to the coast last week. We left very early Tuesday morning.  We went to 3 schools that day for hand over ceremonies.  Latter Day Saint Charities did toilets and clean sanitation in each of the schools.  The children were waiting for us, lined up with their hands together.  We were celebrities to them.  I certainly didn’t feel like one, but we were treated like that.  They would not put their hands out first to shake yours but as soon as the village saw that we were shaking hands, they all came up and were lining up behind the children to shake our hands.  It was something I cannot even explain.  The principal of the school explained that before the toilets there were a lot of serious health problems.  They are doing much better now.

We were in a van traveling with two of the Elders, the Sipples, two of Dr. Winns crew and the driver.  It was one of the worst rides of all time.  The roads here are filled with anything that moves, loaded with who knows what, as high as it can be piled.  We were constantly passing something.  The roads are so rough and bumpy.  It took us all day to go 250 miles. I got a little car sick.

We stayed at the beach, then early the next day, we began our journey to a Buddhist monastery.  We had to down the river on boats with no seats and then through the jungle on the back of motorcycles.  Yikes...no words.  We were invited into the monastery when we got there.  The ladies would lead me around by my hand.  We had to take our shoes off and be barefoot. It was very humbling when we saw the filtration system that LDSC had installed.  They were taking filthy dirty water from the river, piping it through our system and coming up with clean drinking water.   I am literally shocked and astounded at the things our church is doing to help people.  

The next day we rode elephants and then visited three more schools.    One was a vocational school where they were teaching the girls how to sew on treadle machines.  It was incredible. There was a scarf that someone had made by knitting.  I mentioned that I thought it was beautiful and the teacher gave it to me.  I felt so bad I almost cried, because it looked like it was so much work.    Dr. Winn arranged for us to go see how parasols are made here in Myanmar at a famous parasol shop.  So cool.  Then someone in the group bought us one.  We were given gifts at every village we visited.  Dad and I both got longis. (skirts)  Dad wore his one night.  The Elders were way excited.

We had another baptism today.  He is an amazing young man.  I think he is 24.  He is so humble and sweet.  He just cried as he bore his testimony today.  I could not understand any of it, but I could tell it was very special.

The Elders came for dinner today….spaghetti.  There are now 8 of them.  Great things are happening here.  Next Saturday there will be two more baptisms -  the father and brother of a girl who was baptized a year ago.

Our lesson in Relief Society was taught by an amazing beautiful Japanese lady who knows English…translated into Myanmar.  It was hilarious as she was trying to pronounce the words in English as they were being translated into Myanmar.  It was about the prophet Joseph Smith.  I had the thought of how pleased he would be as she bore testimony of him.  It was one of those really neat moments.  All over the world in whatever way we can we are professing Joseph to be a prophet.

Dad and I are speaking in sacrament meeting next week.  Another great effort through translation to bear testimony.

I love our Savior Jesus Christ.  He is our loving friend.  We are so blessed.

I love you more than I can say!

Mom

Crazy Busy

Hi All,

I wanted to send you an email tonight because early in the morning we are leaving for the coast to do a turnover ceremony.  I understand we will be riding elephants.   I am not sure my legs can spread that wide.  We are going to some schools where we have dug some wells.  We will take lots of pictures.  We will be gone until Friday and will have no internet.  

We visited some members last Friday.  It was so special.  They are amazing, soft, gentle and very loving.   I am not sure yet of the numbers in our branch, but we had seventy five attend this Sunday.  They are truly the neatest people I have ever met.   There is a huge group of young adults  age 18-25. Several are now preparing to go on missions.  One is going to the Temple Square Mission on May 17^th.  Her father talked to us and expressed concern about the weather.  He is so concerned that she will freeze to death.  Many of the youth are trying so hard to speak English.  They are very hard to understand but with a little bit of work we can figure out some things.   The language is going to be a problem.  It is very frustrating.  As I sat in Sunday School,one of the missionaries sat by me and translated as they taught the lesson.   In Relief Society one of the girls sat by me and translated but I had a hard time understanding her. There are several nationalities here..Japanese, Philipino.  They seem to know a little English.  The singing is quite funny yet way cool. Everyone sings in their own language and you can hear them all. They love to sing and they sing very loud.  One of the members translated a few of the hymns into Myanmar.  Our closing song for Relief Society was ‘Hark the Herald Angels Sing’.  

The young Elders here are AMAZING!!  It appears they are progressing right along with the language.  I want to learn it so bad but am quite sure I can not.  One of the Elders said he would give me lessons when he teaches the new elders they are transferring in.  Speaking of transfers…they brought in two more today so now we have a total of 8 Elders here.  They will split up so they have 4 living in one part of town and 4 in another.  They truly are the cream of the crop!   I wish you could have seen us Saturday when we went to do a service project of cleaning up “The People’s Park.”  We were crossing busy streets and trying to jam us all into as few taxis as possible.  There are no rules, just get as many in as you can.  The Elders were helping us or we never would have made it!  Most of the Taxi drivers do not speak English.  It was so hot that I thought I might melt as we did our service of picking up garbage around the park.  

Today was our first experience with teaching English.  It is so weird to think that we are going to be doing it alone in a week.  We had to leave here at 6:30 am to get to our first place by 7:00.  It is the Myanmar Anti-narcotic Association (MANA).  The kids that came are truly wonderful.  They want to learn English so much.  They come before work.  Then this evening, we taught at the Division of Social Welfare.  There are only about 10 students in that class.  Both groups are actually doing really well.  I am hoping that dad and I can figure out a way to make it fun for them.  On Wednesdays, we teach at MANA again and then later, at the church.  So that makes a total of 4 classes every week.  The missionaries are also teaching English classes at the church.  Their classes have many more students.  

We would love to get on the regular missionary schedule, but so far we have been so busy that we have been leaving our house by 7 or 8 am every day.  I am hoping we will have a little more spare time as we get settled.  I am adjusting little by little.   I know every day is is going to be hot so I just get ready for it.  Our apartment has air in each room and the power has not gone off for 2 days.   When we are in the car, it has air also, so things have not been too bad.  Our English classes do not have air…it gets hot!!  

I love you all so much!!   

Mom

A Land Of Extremes

Hello Again,

I felt like last night was kind of a disaster as I was writing to you.  The power was out and it was hot and dark and I was trying to write on my phone.  Tonight the power is on, the lights are on, and I am sitting at the computer.   I thought I might fill you in a little more of what is happening over here. 

We made our first trip to the grocery store.  Tun drove us to a place called City Market. It is the most westernized market in the city.  It took us about 30 minutes to get there because of traffic.  The traffic here is HORRIBLE.  No one stays in their lane.  It is just chaotic. It was difficult shopping because I recognized very few things.  Most of the food, I didn't even know what it was.  The things I was familiar with were very expensive because they have to import them. The only cold cereal they had was corn flakes.  They didn’t even have oatmeal. I definitely need to learn a new way of eating and cooking.  

We are sooo grateful our trip up north got canceled because I am not sure how we would have done it.  We were so exhausted and shocked that it would have been a bit of a problem for us.  We will be going down South next Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday for a project. Our travel has already hbeen approved.  We have to get it approved every time we travel. 

We spent most of the day yesterday training with the Sippels.  There is a lot to learn.  Hopefully it will come as we jump in and do it.  We are so grateful the Sippels are still here.  They have been very helpful.  

Our apartment is quite nice.  I think we are in a pretty nice part of town.  Yangon is huge, comprising several different townships.  I have seen nicer areas and also a lot of poverty.  The apartment is quite large…4 bathrooms and 4 bedrooms.  The power continues to keep going out and when I looked outside and saw the power pole I know why.  It is the biggest mess or wires you have ever seen.  I am surprised the whole town doesn’t burn down.

I was surprised to see that pollution is a problem here.  It is a lot worse than even our worst days in SL.  My eyes are burning and stinging.  They say when rainy season comes the pollution is washed away.

We had quite the interesting experiences today.  We had to go to the bank to transfer all LDSC funds over in our name and we had to get our business cards printed.  Tun knows everything…he took us downtown Yangon to a photo shop and then a printing place.    There are no words to describe the bank-just picture church tables with computers on them.  The tellers are sitting at the computers and we sat up to the table.     This afternoon we went to visit some of the members. We also visited with our Branch President. He is such a sweet man.

The surprise of the day was when Tun took us to a brand new mall that was just constructed.  I hate to admit it, but it felt so good!  It felt somewhat like home.  It was beautiful with very nice shops.  Kentucky Fried Chicken was there.  It was delicious.  Dad and I decided we would go there on our PDay just to hang out.  We went from one extreme to the other.  Tun said that the average Myanmar could not even afford to walk in the doors of the mall however.  

I love the people here already.  They are so beautiful and modest.  The women wear beautiful colored skirts and tops and most of the men were skirts also (longis)  I even love the light colored tree bark they put on their faces.  I think it makes them look so pretty.

Tomorrow morning we are going to do a project with the ward.  We are going to clean up a park.  I am not sure how that is going to turn out with 100 degree weather picking up garbage.  We have to be at the church at 8:00 a.m. and then we will all take taxis to the park. It will be our first chance to meet most of the members.  We hear they are very excited to meet us and we are excited to meet them as well.

Please don’t forget how much you are loved. 

Mom

Hello Myanmar!!

My beautiful children,

Our first full day in Myanmar is over. It has been a little hectic here. There is so much to learn. 

I will try to tell you some of what we have been doing. 

Our flight over was nuts. We got delayed in SL due to a lightning strike and missed our flight out of LA so luckily they were able to reroute us through Tokyo.  We had lots of wait times in airports. We left out house at 4:00 am Monday and arrived at 3:00 Wednesday afternoon here.  The flight from Tokyo to Thailand was 7 hours. The plane was so much smaller than we are used to.  There was NO leg room. It was so painful.  We arrived in Bangkok at 5:00 am. Our mission president was there to pick us up. We had a great time with him and all the office staff. They are amazing people, mostly Thai. At that point it had been about 38 hours of travel. I could hardly hold my eyes open.   We then caught a  plane to Myanmar. The Sipples (the couple that we are replacing), Tun (our driver), and a few others were there to greet us. Dr. Winn sent some people over.  It was so strange getting our visas. I was walking toward the counter to get in line and a guy yelled at me "hey is this picture of you". He was holding up a paper. I had no idea. Some girl ran it over to me and yes it was.  She would not let us go any farther, took our passports  went to the front of the line and then came back and said "ok you can go".  They had been waiting for us.  

We got to our apartment and dropped off our bags and then the Sipples took us to dinner.  Yikes, I was too tired to even eat.   The food has been an interesting experience.  Most of the stuff, we don't even know what it is.  Dad is being a lot braver than I am. 

We did not sleep great last night we have hopes for tonight. 

The power is out right now  it keeps going out. So I am writing this on my phone.  We are on the third floor so it is very hot when the power goes out here.  

Thanks beyond words for all your amazing words of love.  I have been lifted up by  them.  

Mom

Almost done with the MTC!

Hi Everyone,

Well our time at The MTC is almost over.  Yikes!  We have loved every minute of it here.  We have learned things that we never knew before.  I am so grateful for all that the church is doing around the world to help those in need.  There are many needs and we are doing the best we can one step at a time.   The thing dad and I have been most impressed with is that we have been shown how some things that we might have thought would be helpful are not helpful at all.  The church has been studying and following for years the things that really work in helping the poor and needy and the things that don’t help, in fact make things worse.  It is fascinating!  We now understand the principles, and hopefully we will be able to implement them.  

This week our training has been only on humanitarian service and a few tips on mental health and how to get clean water.   Tomorrow is our last day.  We will be given the church’s computer program of how to request, plan, follow through and report our projects.  It is very complicated and I understand why it needs to be.   

We continue to be amazed at all the missionaries that are here.  We love them.   We especially love the couples that have been in our group. Elder Carter from Canada continues me keep me laughing.  We have seen and experienced a lot of tender mercies here.  It has been such a spiritual uplift for us.  We have seen true consecration. 

We received our fight plans and our papers from Myanmar so we can get our visas when we get into the country.  It is a little weird, hopefully it will all work.   We will be leaving Monday morning at 6:30 a.m.  We will arrive in Myanmar Wednesday afternoon (their time) around 2:30 p.m. going through Hong Kong and Thailand.

I love you all so much!!

Thank you for the wonderful counsel and advice it means more than I can ever express…you have helped me!

Mommy

Five Days Down

Hello To My Beautiful Family,

I just have so many things I want to tell you about our week here at the MTC, I don’t know where to start.  Marc you were right…I love it!   We had some incredible experiences, some that I was not expecting.    We have made so many wonderful new friends.   We have loved the classes…even though they were very hard.

  

It has been a blessing for us to be here with 3 other couples that will be going to Asia Humanitarian also.  One is going to open up Shanghai China, another one is going to Laos, and the other will be our first line contacts in Hong Kong.  Even though we will never see them it just feels so nice to know they will be out there also.   Sometimes we feel like we are the only ones hurting and sacrificing but we did a count of the 4 couple’s children and grandchildren.  There is a total of 25 children and 84 grandchildren that we are all leaving.  So I guess we are not the only ones with hurting hearts.  

We were taken to eat at a Lao/Thai restaurant the other night so ‘we’ could get a taste of the food.  I have heard that Myanmar is not like Lao/Thai at all…we will soon see.

We do not have our visas yet.  We heard today that we may get them when we get to Myanmar, but the church legal department is waiting for some documents from Myanmar before they get our tickets.  

Next week we will do our humanitarian training.  We saw the schedule it looks like a full week.  One day we will come up to the church office building for some specialized training and have lunch at the Joseph Smith Memorial.  

I am grateful that I get the privilege of serving this mission.  It is not at all about me, but about me doing my best to help others in ways I do not yet know or understand.  We were told today what it means to be a ‘successful missionary’.  It is just about doing our very best!  We were challenged again to learn the language, we will try really hard to learn a few phrases.  I wish they taught it here, that would make it a little easier.  The couple going to Russia already know a ton, they honestly sound really good.  (I think)

We have seen young Elders and Sisters literally from all over the world, going all over the world.  It is breathtaking to see what goes on here.  They have a light that is bright.  

I LOVE you all so much it hurts!  

Mom