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