They're sending me to Vietnam...it's this whole other country (Week 9)

Xin chào, mọi người! 

P-day has once again snuck up on me! Time has started moving so fast here, it's very weird. By this time next week, I will already be in Vietnam, and I will have a companion I don't even know yet! Sister Luth, Sister Phetsomphou, and I will be separated by Laos and Cambodia. Tragic. 

After church on Sunday we were rather bored and hungry, so we had an impromptu pioneer day celebration—this included bread, jam, beef jerky, a single cinnamon roll split between the seven of us, some lemon heads (100% accurate to the period), and a couple minutes of walking aimlessly around the MTC. We are all going a little insane in here, I think. 

 

Monday marked the beginning of some hard goodbyes! Four of our elders left a week earlier than the rest of the district, and the little testimony meeting we had before they left made a lot of us cry. Before I got to the MTC I was very worried about how things would be with my district because hanging out with 12 guys all the time sounded slightly like a nightmare, but I ended up really loving them. We've been stuck in the MTC together for so long that it's going to be weird to be apart and we are sad to be leaving each other, but we are also so excited to finally be in the field. A quick message for my district: Chị yêu thượng các anh cả! Chị sẽ nhớ gia đình đẹp quá của mình. Các bồ tèo luôn luôn và mãi mãi. Nhưng mà "đôi khi" là gì??? (For those of you who google translate this, please know that google translate makes it sound WAY sappier than I wrote it to be or just translates it slightly wrong, I promise I am not 100% stupid in Vietnamese) 

In which I am not in the same building as an apostle (Week 8)

Xin chào, mọi người!! 

P-days are kind of my most stressful day of the week because it feels like we have no time to actually anything, but không sao! We got to go to the temple this morning, which was lovely. It is always cool to leave the MTC bubble, but weird to walk around Provo as a missionary when I was just living there as a civilian not too long ago! 

On Saturday last week, we had a little gathering with my district and the two Thai districts—technically it was not affiliated with any holiday because that is frowned upon at the MTC and it was not really a party (also frowned upon at the MTC), but we did play games and eat candy and it did happen to be Halloween. What a coincidence. My companion Sister Phetsomphou and my roommate Sister Rogers planned the whole thing and they did a great job; it was a good P-day! 

On Sunday, we had to sprint to our morning leadership meeting in the rain because we left the dorm at 7:41 and had to be there at 7:45, but we were miraculously on time. It was pretty impressive, and I am not sure how we pulled it off because our dorm is not close to that building. After church, Sister Luth and I watched all the behind the scenes videos about the Book of Mormon videos, which healed the documentary sized hole in my heart at least temporarily (guys, I really miss documentaries), and I also discovered that I really like the takis from Trader Joes. This is not pertinent information to anyone reading this but I felt like it needed to be said. 

This week we had three HOAs in English, Thai, and Vietnamese, and they all went really well!! I got an almost perfect score in my Vietnamese one, which was so cool. It is awesome to be able to actually understand people when they speak Vietnamese to me. This only happens some of the time, but like, it is nice when it does. We learned about haggling in class this week, which was quite exciting—fun fact, speaking is apparently way easier for me when I am kind of arguing with someone, but hopefully I find another way to be good at Vietnamese because I probably shouldn't be arguing with people as a missionary. (Or maybe that will be my fun new strategy for missionary work in Vietnam! Very Christlike!) 

"You can say you're shipping off to 'Nam!" (Week 7)

Xin chào and happy Halloween! 

I swear the MTC is some kind of weird time warp, because I feel like P-day was maybe two days ago and now it's here again! The days are so long, but the weeks are flying by somehow—I am over halfway through the MTC and it won't be that long until I am actually in Vietnam, which is insane. Here is my Google Photos link at the beginning in case anyone wants to see pictures but does not want to read to the end of my emails: https://photos.app.goo.gl/HKR23DtXgexxAjM5A 

Here are my updates from this week for those of you with attention spans/time! 

I forgot to write about this last week, but my name tags have been incorrect the whole time I've been a missionary! Sister in Vietnamese is Chị, but they put an extra i on my tags so it said "CHIỊ" instead. I didn't realize that this wasn't intentional until my teacher showed me her old tag, and then I had to request new ones, but now my name tags say the right thing and no one asks me why there is an exclamation point after Chi anymore. I used to tell people it was just because they were so excited to have a Vietnamese speaking sister at the MTC, but I guess I have become old news at this point so the excitement is no longer necessary. 

Secret bathrooms and a sick meatball (Week 6)

Xin chào, mọi người! 

This week was so busy, but I am not even surprised by it at this point because that's pretty standard for the MTC and for missionary life in general. I definitely should have written about things throughout the week, but I was irresponsible and neglected to do that, so I have had to scramble to write today! This email may be slightly unorganized because I'm trying to write fast, but không sao. Here is some stuff from this week! 

On Sunday, we found out that our branch president (President Hamilton) owns a harpsichord! Sister Hamilton spoke in sacrament meeting, and that was the most I have ever heard the word harpsichord in a talk before—it was really hard to not laugh every time she said it because for some reason it was just so funny to hear "harpsichord" so many times. I felt bad about this because she gave a fantastic talk, and we learned so much about harpsichords! Until this week, I did not know that harpsichords worked by plucking the strings instead of hitting them like a piano! Pretty exciting information. My sister Miriam will be so disappointed that I didn't already know this. Sorry. 

Finally a free woman! (Week 5)

Xin chào, mọi người! 

This week was far better than last week! This email, however, probably won't be very substantial because I have only been back in the Real World (not that the MTC is quite the real world anyway) for a couple days, but man is it nice to be out of the prison that is the sick bay. I am so motivated to repent of my crime of getting Covid just to avoid ending up there again. In all seriousness, quarantine wasn't that bad—it was discouraging to be stuck by myself and I definitely felt like I was going to fall behind language-wise, but it was nice to be able to rest because I was too sick to do literally anything even if I was allowed to go anywhere, and I am so glad the MTC was being cautious about it because Covid is not something I want to give anyone else. That was honestly my biggest worry when I got sick because I just did not want to get my companions or district sick, but so far everyone I know has been fine. I don't know why I was the only one to get it, but I am just that lucky, I guess. 

I am basically Typhoid Mary (week 4)

My beloved [email list], I write unto you again that you may know that I am yet alive.*

This week was mostly good but at the same time so chaotic and stressful, and also I have become incredibly ill! I am actually writing this email from the sick bay—how exciting! Ugh. On Friday morning I went to the doctor because I was feeling awful and ended up testing positive for Covid, so I am now being quarantined for 3-5 days, depending on when I start to feel better. I'm essentially an old timey isolation patient; it's like in all the books I read about polio as a child. I had to pack up all my belongings and move to the quarantine within an hour of being diagnosed (not to brag, but I did it in around 25 minutes because I'm just that impressive), the doctor comes to check on me every morning, and people drop food off at my door and have to leave before I can open it. The good news is that my symptoms so far have not been too bad—like, it's horrible, but not as debilitating as when I got the flu last year. So I will survive. And they probably won't even have to put me in an iron lung or anything. 

I will probably break down this week by the days because I'm not super sure what the best way to approach writing emails is yet! If this is a horrible format you have my permission to respond, "boooo Chị Heiss this is so bad," but you also have to keep in mind that I am an invalid right now. Ha. I am preemptively making you feel guilty, take that. 

I stormed the castle all by myself (Week 3)

Xin chào!

This email is going to be all over the place because General Conference (as much as I love it) is totally messing up my P-day! So I am writing this in an auditorium with a bunch of other missionaries, which is perhaps not very reverent, but I have given myself permission because I do have to send emails and no one can really stop me. In my next email I will probably explain what my daily schedule is like, but I am so pressed for time right now! 

On Saturday and Sunday I mostly just packed and ran errands, but I also got to go to brunch with my great-aunt and uncle, so that was lovely. Sunday was the Primary Program, which was as per usual very cute and kind of hilarious. Monday and Tuesday were also mostly just packing! I thought that I would never finish packing, but I did manage to survive it. I also managed to survive my two weeks of home MTC! What a miracle. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be but I am so happy to not have to sit on Zoom all day anymore. 

On Tuesday I watched The Prince of Egypt (for probably the millionth time) because I didn't have any classes, and that is such a good movie! The song "Through Heaven's Eyes" made me cry like a baby because I was so stressed out about going to the MTC and it just made me feel way better. Right now I feel like a "single thread in a tapestry" who can "never see its purpose in the pattern of the grand design," but I know that God put me here for a reason even if I don't quite know what that reason is yet. I am trying to look at my mission and my whole life "through heaven's eyes," and trust that everything will work out even though I don't know what the future's going to be like.

On Wednesday morning, my family (gia đình của mình!) called me and sang a beautiful parody of the happy birthday song with the lyrics "happy MTC day" (there were no other words). I also got to hear an Original Phoebe Song featuring the line, "have fun storming the castle all by yourself," which was pretty creative of her even though she stole it from The Princess Bride. 

Fun fact: castle in Arabic is قصر (qasr), which maybe comes from the Latin "castrum," but the root in Arabic (ق ص ر) is related to shortness! This is so interesting because it could be referring to the short/small boundaries that you're confined to in a castle. If we just go with the Arabic root meaning, then the MTC actually is kind of like a castle! 

Chị Heiss and the quorum of the 12 (week 2)

Chào buổi sáng (good morning), mọi người!

To quote the 17-1800s midwife Martha Ballard,* I have been at home. Like, all week. The majority of my life is just sitting in Zoom meetings right now, which is not particularly exciting but also isn’t terrible. Home MTC is definitely not my favourite thing in the whole world, but it has been better than I expected!

I am not sure how to organize these emails and the way I am writing them will probably change, but for now you are just going to get a lot of my semi-unorganized thoughts from this week! I should probably apologize in advance for how long this is, but my emails will almost definitely get a bit shorter once I am at the MTC and when I am in the field, so really you should appreciate me writing while I still have time on my hands. Or, if you hate both me and reading, you can comfort yourself with the knowledge that in a few days I will be way busier and probably won’t write novels every week.

Saturday was P-day! I finally got to go for a walk and went to the grocery store with my grandma (hooray for leaving the house), and called my family. I also got to help put new hymns in the binders at church!

Sunday was pretty much a P-day too because we didn’t have any classes, but it was not a relaxing day because that’s when I gave my farewell talk! I was very nervous about it because public speaking makes me incredibly anxious, but I didn’t even die! That is always a positive thing. A bunch of people came to see me speak and say goodbye, which was lovely (thank you all for coming).

Farewell Talk

Good morning, brothers and sisters! 

For those of you who don’t know me, which is most of you because I’ve only been in the ward since June and I’ve been gone basically every other week, my name is Rachel Heiss. I’ve been living with my grandma, Sister Layton, while I’ve been taking summer classes at BYU and preparing to serve a mission. I’m sort of from Georgia, but I’ve moved around a bit for my whole life, and now my family is living in Qatar—if you don’t know where that is, it’s a little country that’s connected to Saudi Arabia. My parents and my five younger siblings are watching this meeting on Zoom right now because that would have been a long way to travel to see me speak in church! I just finished my freshman year at BYU, where I recently declared my major as Middle East Studies and Arabic. In June, I was called to serve in the Vietnam Hanoi mission and started on September 16th, so as of a few days ago, I am officially Chị Heiss!

I have officially disqualified myself from singing “I Hope They Call Me on a Mission” (Week 1, but kind of week .5?)

Xin chào, mọi người! (Hello, everyone!)

This is going to be maybe the most boring email of all time because I have just been sitting at home, but I am determined to send out an email every week of my mission so I thought it would be better to start that habit as soon as possible rather than waiting until I get to the actual MTC.

I got set apart by my stake president on Tuesday evening (this basically just means that I was given a special priesthood blessing that gave me the authority/responsibility to be a missionary), which was honestly so cool! My family got to come on Zoom from Doha, which was lovely and impressive of them because it was 6 AM there. I have a lot of worries about going on a mission because I am naturally a very anxious person, but as soon as I was set apart I felt way better—this is what basically everyone told me happened for them, but I guess I thought you were all kidding or something. My worries didn’t, like, magically go away, but I wasn’t so overwhelmed anymore because I just felt more like I could handle things!

Wednesday kind of felt like the first day of school, in that I had to wake up way earlier than I wanted to but was so excited that it was easy! That feeling has not quite been continuing through home MTC. I am still excited about it, I am just also tired because this is very different from my normal sleep schedule.

I went to the biggest Zoom meeting of my life on Wednesday, because apparently over 900 other missionaries are entering the MTC at the same time as me! Insane. The most memorable part of this meeting was just the guy in charge of the MTC (who…has a name, probably? Brother Rahlff or something?) saying, “I hate to tell you this on your first day, but I have bad news for you…you’ve disqualified yourselves from being able to sing the song I Hope They Call Me on a Mission. Because you’re doing it! You were called, and now you’ve started!” Honestly, I think that’s when everything started to feel more real, because yeah, they DID call me on a mission and I HAVE started. Pretty cool. Tragic to be banned from a primary song, though.