Attitude of Gratitude, How to Pack a Carry On Bag, and some useful thai phrases

Sawatdi Khap khroobkhrua le phuan! or Aloha family and friends,

Its been another long week, but hey its been getting better. Actually its been great and this week flew by so fast. like woosh. woah. there went the week hahah. Thai has slowly been coming along but Ive been learning so much. truly feel like im receiving divine help and guidance.

So we hear from a lot of speakers here and one of them said that Attitude of gratitude thing. yeah i like that saying but on to important stuff like...

HOW TO PACK A CARRY ON!

There are 3 ways to pack on your carry on bag

First... you can be boring and put like an extra change of clothes and some toiletries and necessities.

Second... you could fill it up with 40+ ties

Third... (My personal fav, i shouldve done this one) literally fill your whole carry on bag with candy. like costco sized boxes of candy. im talking snickers, red vines, jelly beans. The whole works. I wish I had done that, but then again more luggage= more problems. 

Useful thai phrases to know if any of you travel to Thailand

• Mai ruu-pronounced...uh.. mai luuu. = I dont know
• Mai khawcay - mai cow jai = I dont understand
• bombababoh = mentally unstable (or the way that we all feel at the end of 12 hours of studying)

Sorry this is so short, this keyboard makes my hands hurt when i type and ive been typing non stop for the past 45 minutes and now my hands are cramping....

OH. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND going onto lds.org (even if you arent mormon) and going to their search bar and looking up this video called "The Bus." Let me know how you liked it. it really helped me and my friends get through our hardest and roughest day. hopefully youll all share a similar sense of humor.

Here's the link to the video that Elder Ellis mentioned: https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2012-06-1870-school-bus?lang=eng

Thank you to everyone that sent packages and LETTERS! I love letters and mail cause I only get to check email once a week.

Also any friends reporting to the MTC this week, look for me cause ill be hosting you guys!!!!!

And if anyone can somehow get some sriracha to me in the MTC (jk...not really...but sorta)

They had sriracha for a bit in the dining hall but apparently that was like a misorder/fluke. so we only had it for a bit.....but me and my friends love it! so we asked one of the workers today if she knew what happened and told us the story. but get this. She goes back into the prep area and pulls out a WHOLE BOTTLE. Oh my happy day. sriracha. but she also recommended that we take a bottle of it with us. just cause it wont be a regular condiment choice.

The food is good, life is good, you guys are all great people never forget. Until next week!

Keep it real. Keep adventuring 

Elder Ellis

1st Week in the MTC

Aloha, or should I say, Sawatdi khap!

Yes, I have begun learning Thai. And yes it is quite difficult.

Quick terminology run down:

MTC - Missionary training center, the place where I go to learn Thai and more importantly about the Gospel of Jesus Christ so that I may teach the people in Thailand. Ill be here in the MTC until August 19 (So send me stuff till then because shipping to Thailand is horrible...or so I've heard)

District - This is the group of guys that will also be heading out to Thailand with me, there's 8 of us right now. 6 from Utah, 1 from Oregon. Then me. Yeaahhh

Zone - These consist of groups of districts. The zone i'm in covers languages such as Thai, Cantonese, Laotian, Vietnamese, and Cambodian

Missionary - What I am. Devoting 2 years of my life (all the way till June 2017) to share and spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ

Imagine getting dropped off, saying bye to your family, then going to your dorm room to drop off your stuff, pick up around 15 pounds of books and then walking into a classroom and having people speak to you only in Thai.... yeah....I didn't like it that much either.

But don't worry! It was rough. not gonna lie. There's a point where I got so frustrated one night that all I wanted to do was like cry. but I didn't. cause that would've been pretty weird. So yeah frustration definitely hit hard. And the next day we had to start teaching and talking with a khon (or is it kon? idk. pronounced "cone") thai. Rough translation to "Thai person/thai people/native speaker." going into to teach and talk to the native speaker I was terrified. we walk in (my companion and me) and we sit down introduce ourselves then...nothing. Hah. I started to testify and share a bit about God but my companion said nothing. Crazy right? Ho. was tough. It was a pretty rough first lesson that day. The next time we went to go and teach and practice though it went a whole lot smoother. We had prepared and were able to teach with the Holy Ghost as our companion, helping to bring a lot greater sense of happiness in our words. I'm sure we butchered all of the words we tried to say but the feeling that was in that room was so real.

So if you're confused about any of the terms i'm using, I invite you to go and look them up on lds.org or you can always reply to SENDER. Don't choose all. please. there's a lot of people. But yeah i'll probably get back to you next week hahah.

Gotta love the new roommates. Maybe i'll attach a picture. we'll see. But they're all great people. All of them are fresh out of high school. pretty crazy stuff. One of my roommates brought a carry on full of ties. Im talking like. A TON of ties. upwards of around 40? 50? hes got a lot. Ties in Thailand. THAI-land. ahhah yeah... ok not that funny.

Also gotta give a shout out to all the 53rd ward members I've seen in the MTC. It's like this big awesome reunion from BYU. It really was a comfort to see all these friends of mines. Helped the transition to no technology and to this foreign land, move a whole lot smoother.

Forgive me for any grammar errors....like I'm in a rush. don't get to spend the whole day on the computer but as I get used to doing this I'm sure things will go a lot smoother...

I've got some great Thai teachers, bro. Yuen, and bro. Thralp. Apparently i'm related to bro. Yuen. pretty cool. doesn't mean he cuts me any slack though....I wish. nah nah nah. but seriously. I think ive heard less than 10 sentences of English from them. They've been speaking to me all in pasay Thai (thai language). Also side note. I study the language like 5-8 hours a day. BUT what I've learned is that if you just study the gospel and gain confidence in that, the language will come much easier . so there's a FOREIGN LANGUAGE MISSIONARY PRO TIP.

It's been a lot of fun, I haven't drank the orange juice. I haven't eaten as much ice cream as i expected. I should've brought more hangers. Match your socks to your slacks. And be careful of tones.

Have a blessed week, I know it sounds like I'm rambling...cause I am. but hey. We learn as we go right?

My camera wont connect to the computer. yeah. sorry guys. maybe next time? idk. maybe. or ill leave you all waiting. I miss the go pro (RIP 2014-2015).

Oh wait. another fun thing i forgot to mention. I can count from 1-999 in THAI! how cool is that. it only took me like 20 minutes to learn how to do it. really easy actually. and funny story. so to really like learn how to do the whole counting thing we were asked to go around the whole building and count our steps. so being the obnoxious people we are we start going (gonna spell it so you can sound out the words idk how to get the funny characters on here)

NOONG SOONG SAM SI HAH (1 2 3 4 5) all the way up to 100. it was hilarious because as we walked around everyone started closing there class room doors. Thai is just so beautiful. its like painting pictures with the words. except if im off a tone either I just said i will bless someone or that I will kill them. and beautiful and ugly are off by a single tone (high tone vs low tone) so like...good incentive to not even try complimenting or saying that at all. Thai is a beautiful language. and I'm sorry but I wont be in Thailand till August..

also my address is 

Elder Logan Kalaiwaipono Ellis

Aug17 Thai-Ban

2007 N 900 E Unit 55

Provo UT 84602

Forward ever, stopping never,

Elder Ellis

or elduuuhhh elliiiiss (in thai. sound it out. you got this)

SLC and the MTC

Elder Ellis successfully checked in to the Missionary Training Center (MTC) in Provo, UT on June 17, 2015 at 12:45pm.

Prior to checking in, he visited various site in Salt Lake City, UT where he was born 18 years prior.

He then said his goodbyes to his Family near the Provo Temple, and then it was off to the MTC.

We are very excited for Elder Ellis to learn the Thai language and to become an instrument in the hands of the Lord.

See you in 2 years.

Set apart to serve the Lord

Elder Ellis was set apart to be a missionary on Friday June 12, 2015 by President Matsuzaki.

He then said his good byes and off to the airport and Salt Lake City, UT.