c'era una volta...

Hello everybody! I really laughed at your comment about you being so happy to be walking and Christy being so happy to be done walking. I will be so happy to be able to go outside and walk someday soon. :) Only 3 weeks left in the MTC , it has gone by pretty fast. We are now the oldest district and so we've got to really step it up on our Italian speaking to set a good example for the younger districts. It has been a good week. Thanks so much for sending that package. It was kind of cool, I'm reading the Old Testament and I had just read Solomon's dedicatory prayer on the temple on Sunday morning, and then Sunday afternoon we got to watch the Oquirrh Mountain dedication. There are a lot of similarities in the prayers still. It was a really great dedication. It would have been good if they had told the ladies in the choir to wear less makeup, but they sang well so I guess it's okay. It was a really neat opportunity. And the Oquirrh Mountain Temple really is gorgeous. ...

Hello! Sounds like you've had a busy week. But it sounds like it's been a good one as well. Ughhh I'm wasting time because the chairs are too short and my keyboard is weird. So, our letter experiment last week went pretty well. We strictly observed quiet time and had our lights out before 10:30 and I got mail every day last week. Pretty cool. This week has been a busy one. Last Tuesday night we heard from Spencer V. Jones of the seventy, he was a pretty great speaker, we enjoyed him. He told us to look up and listen to what comes down. He also told us to love the people, but not too much because we want them to stay in their own countries and build the church up there instead of fortifying Utah. We sang where can I turn for peace in choir, and it was a pretty arrangement. We finished teaching our progressive investigator Patrizia, and the real Patrizia in Italy has a really cool story. She became a member about 12-15 years ago. She was taking an English class that was taugh...

Buon Giorno Famiglia Mia! How is everything going? Hopefully all is well. So, one more week down---we leave four weeks from yesterday. Next week will be a pretty exciting week. We have a district of 3 people who are leaving for Milan on Monday. They have to fly on a German airline after they stop in Frankfurt though, and they can only have one carry-on and it has to be under 18 pounds. We're hoping we'll have the same as the other Catanians ---Delta, which allows two carry- ons ---one can be 40 pounds and the other is just a "personal item." And then on Wednesday of next week we should be getting new Catania missionaries, but we aren't sure how many will come yet. The district that is leaving is way interesting though, it will be weird for them to leave. They have Anziano Malku , who is Albanian and was a Muslim until he was 14 and learned about the church and told his grandpa he didn't want his inheritance. He's very enthusiastic about missionary wor...

I don't know how to work the thing with the word document, I'll have to ask the Elder who suggested that. I just experimented without writing anything and as soon as I reopened the email it closed the word document so I guess I'd have to figure something else out. That's slightly annoying though, but oh well. There isn't a save draft option on this email either. These computers are really annoying. They even block us from listening to hymns from lds.org . I don't know what they think we're going to find. So, you accidentally sent me Tommy's letter. And from his email it sounded like he thought I was leaving for Italy last Friday, so I hope if he has mine that he doesn't forward it to Italy, then I'll never get it...I'm not leaving until September. Actually, I don't know where to send his to him that he'll actually get it fast. Wow, sounds like Dad gave a lot of talks, that's a pretty intense Sunday. This week has been a busy one. ...

Hello Family! Things in the MTC are going pretty well. Last Wednesday two new sisters came who are going to Milano . They're pretty fun girls. We like having them around. Our zone is tiny, only 21 people. And our districts only have 3-5 people. Which is pretty weird when you compare it to some of the Spanish districts that have 15 in a district, and HUGE branches. Our teachers were both gone last week, so had substitutes. We've still been working hard though. Sorella Jones came back yesterday and we had a two-hour discussion about the Book of Mormon, and how it's REAL and the people in it were real people, and how it can relate to all of us. She pointed out Alma 10-11 when Amulek is talking about how the gospel has blessed him and his house, and then Alma 14 where they burn all the believers---that Amulek's family was probably killed and he was told that he shouldn't stop it even though he knew that he and Alma could have. It was really crazy/intense. Then we ju...

I really should have made my email address lizabstar, it's what my fingers are used to typing in over and over. I'm sorry to hear about Jason Florez, that's very sad. I hope the family is doing okay, they're great people. I always liked Sarah a lot. And that's so exciting that Sister Fisher is now Sister Butterfield! I'm happy for her. Sounds like it's been quite the busy week. Congratulations on getting so many hours of exercise, that's awesome. I can imagine the look on Brother Warrick's face when you said you wanted to walk home, that's funny. That's a long walk in the heat too. We've been doing a bit of cross-training here--it's too boring to do a full 45 minutes on a bike or elliptical with no movies or music. So we do 20-25 minutes and then 10-15 minutes of weights and then stretching. I'm working on keeping the flexibilty, I can get my head to my knee pretty easily now, with my leg straight. It's pretty cool. The weight...

Carissima Famiglia Mia, This has been a good week. As you may have noticed/figured, I did not go to Italy yesterday. That's okay, I still have things to learn/do here. And I still like it. This week we have family names from one of the ladies whose husband is in the MTC Presidency. I can't remember what President Clegg's connection with Italy is, but he likes the Italian missionaries, and Sister Clegg gave Sorella Miller 15 names that need initiatories, endowments and sealing to parents done. So today we'll do the initiatories, 5 each. Next week we'll have 5 Italian sisters, so three weeks of endowments for them, and then sealings in four weeks from today. So that's pretty exciting. It'll be kind of nice to have a bit of extra time today. We're all kind of exhausted because we were up at 4 am on Monday to take Sorella Williams down to the anziani (she was a solo sister, so she needed escorts at all times). And then none of us were able to get back to sl...

Sounds like you guys have had a pretty exciting week. I'm still here, and I'm okay with that. I still have a lot to learn and I haven't gotten incredibly impatient yet. Although the half hour of email is a little hectic. They didn't actually add the new sisters last week, I think they made a mistake. This week though, there are two new Italian sisters coming in, they're going to the Milano mission, and they'll be in our room. And then seven elders, I think most going to Milano and two or three to Roma. We're pretty excited. Seven people left to Catania yesterday at 5 am. We had to get up at four and escort the solo sister down to the anziani and so we didn't sleep much Sunday night, we couldn't get back to sleep after that. Sunday is probably my favorite day, and this last Sunday was fairly relaxing. Fast Sundays we have mission conferences, we all meet in the big room and have people talk to us for two hours. It's really long and hard to stay aw...

Mom and Dad, Hi, how are you? Things here are good. After two weeks, my companions and I still like each other. :) They really are awesome girls. It's hard to write everybody back and not be completely repetitive. And to find the time to do it all. Let's see . . . my companions and the other sister in our zone (our zone is all Italian, by the way, which is awesome --- a lot of the Spanish-speakers have companions who aren't even going to the same country, never mind the same mission) have all been sick this week. Sorry about the long parentheses. :) I haven't gotten sick yet, and I'm hoping that it stays that way. They just have colds though, so that's better than swine flu. We've been teaching, a lot. Our teachers do role-play for progressive investigators, based on people they taught on their mission, or for Fratello Fife based on himself before he became active in the church --- he was inactive from age 9 to 19, and left on a mission 4 months after he was...