28 July 2009
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 reactivated. They broke a lot of rules to get him there. But he's a fantastic teacher. Sorella Jones is AMAZING as well, everyone adores her, she's tough, but great. Anyway, FF's person that we're teaching is Alessandro. He's married to a member who really wants him to get baptized, but he doesn't see what the big deal is. And SJ's is Patrizia, and she has two little kids, and her husband works all the time and her two-year-old son is really sick and they can't figure out what's wrong with him, and she doesn't think it's fair and doesn't see how God could really love his children and make a baby suffer that much. So we have appointments with those two a few times a week. It's definitely not easy, but we're learning a lot. We get feedback every third lesson that we teach, but they don't give us any hints to help us, since real investigators won't come with hints except from the Spirit. It is interesting though, to see our improvements and areas where we're still struggling. but it's kind of cool. I think the Italian zone is the only one that does this, partly because Fratello Fife has worked here forever and has had time to experiment with what works.
We also have appointments in the TRC where volunteers come in and we teach them. These are generally fairly easy though, because they're usually members and they aren't all great at pretending to be investigators. Like yesterday, one of the volunteers essentially led the lesson for us. I don't think that happens in real life, although that might be nice.
We also go to the RC on Wednesdays, and answer the phone calls from pass-along cards and commercials, or do follow-up calls for people who ordered things from them. We did them around 4:30 and just did follow-ups, and not many people answered the phone. The one lady who did had gotten her video a year ago. I think they might be a bit behind on these follow-ups. She liked the video, and said thank you, but hung up before I could ask if she wanted missionaries to come over. Evidently last night was a big night though. There was a Michael Jackson special or something that had Mormon ads during commercials, so they got tons of calls. Who knew that Michael Jackson's popularity would give the missionaries work to do . . .
There is not enough time to learn everything I fell like we're supposed to learn! And Preach My Gospel is great, but there is so much work we have to do to the lessons meaningful to individuals! I guess that's good though. My assignment yesterday was to teach my teacher about the Book of Mormon and how to pray (all in Italian). I needed to do a bit more work on answering "so what" questions though. It's nice to have feedback --- the big question was what's the big deal about the Book of Mormon that we teach it in the first lesson? Hard to explain on the spot in a different language when thinking half in English and half in Italian. I need to work on thinking in Italian, rather than trying to think in English and translating. They're almost like two separate knowledge banks though, like I have to copy and paste English knowledge to the Italian folder, because when I'm trying to teach in Italian it's really hard to draw out English ideas. My next assignment is to teach "what's the big deal about prophets, why should I care about them?" And we'll just work through the first lesson bit by bit I suppose. Hopefully I'll remember all of it. :) It's challenging. I think one of my biggest problems is that I have nobody to speak Italian with, and I'd improve a lot faster if I was talking to people who actually know what I'm saying. My district is learning fast, but they're still scared of conjugating verbs, and they only know three tenses. It does kind of feel like a CIA training place or something --- spiritual boot camp.
I'm learning to pray better in Italian --- it's hard to make it not feel like just a list sometimes, rather than an actual conversation with God. There's always so much to learn, but I'm doing pretty well. It's just hard to remember the things I want to write. And P-day really is the shortest/busiest day of the week.
We're getting two new sisters in our room tomorrow, they aren't Italians though, so we'll see how that goes with different schedules and everything. We're pretty good about quiet time and sleeping --- a lot of the sisters aren't --- they stay up way way late --- who knows how they can even function the next day. I generally get about 7-1/2 hours of sleep and it doesn't feel like much at all.
I really wish I knew if I was leaving or not, that would be nice.
What else is new . . . Ruth 1 makes up for the gory/disturbingness of Judges 19-21. Seriously --- weird stuff. But Ruth is pretty amazing.
The guy who gave our fireside on Sunday said to write nasty letters to people who told us "oh, that's nice and you'll have great scenery, too bad you won't baptize anyone." --- he said that's a sin. What they're trying to do in the MTC right now is get people to REALLY care about the investigators, and recognize that God has prepared thousands in every land to receive the gospel, and if we don't believe we'll be able to teach anyone, obviously we won't. Then he applied the hymn "Come, Come Ye Saints" to us as missionaries. It was a pretty cool fireside, the guy had lots of good stories and was pretty fun to listen to plus he had microphones set out for people to share thoughts/comments. AND HE DIDN'T GO OVER TIME!!! I like listening to people a lot better when they don't go half an hour over their allotted time, because we have such tight schedules that a half hour means a lot.
We sang in choir at last week's devotional (Tuesday). It was pretty cool. The choir is neat, only a tiny section of sisters and tons of elders. It sounds SO good. And Elder Groberg spoke, which was also pretty neat, I thought. We get a lot of good speakers here. And the firesides and devotionals make the weeks easier, I think, just because they inspire me to focus on being my best, and help me to realize that I'm doing really quite well.
I am glad I'm here. I'm learning so much, and I have an amazing zone. Really, Italy is getting some FANTASTIC people. The rest of the world is hopefully as lucky.
Anyway, I love you guys!
Have an excellent week!
XOXOXO Sorella Eliza
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 reactivated. They broke a lot of rules to get him there. But he's a fantastic teacher. Sorella Jones is AMAZING as well, everyone adores her, she's tough, but great. Anyway, FF's person that we're teaching is Alessandro. He's married to a member who really wants him to get baptized, but he doesn't see what the big deal is. And SJ's is Patrizia, and she has two little kids, and her husband works all the time and her two-year-old son is really sick and they can't figure out what's wrong with him, and she doesn't think it's fair and doesn't see how God could really love his children and make a baby suffer that much. So we have appointments with those two a few times a week. It's definitely not easy, but we're learning a lot. We get feedback every third lesson that we teach, but they don't give us any hints to help us, since real investigators won't come with hints except from the Spirit. It is interesting though, to see our improvements and areas where we're still struggling. but it's kind of cool. I think the Italian zone is the only one that does this, partly because Fratello Fife has worked here forever and has had time to experiment with what works.
We also have appointments in the TRC where volunteers come in and we teach them. These are generally fairly easy though, because they're usually members and they aren't all great at pretending to be investigators. Like yesterday, one of the volunteers essentially led the lesson for us. I don't think that happens in real life, although that might be nice.
We also go to the RC on Wednesdays, and answer the phone calls from pass-along cards and commercials, or do follow-up calls for people who ordered things from them. We did them around 4:30 and just did follow-ups, and not many people answered the phone. The one lady who did had gotten her video a year ago. I think they might be a bit behind on these follow-ups. She liked the video, and said thank you, but hung up before I could ask if she wanted missionaries to come over. Evidently last night was a big night though. There was a Michael Jackson special or something that had Mormon ads during commercials, so they got tons of calls. Who knew that Michael Jackson's popularity would give the missionaries work to do . . .
There is not enough time to learn everything I fell like we're supposed to learn! And Preach My Gospel is great, but there is so much work we have to do to the lessons meaningful to individuals! I guess that's good though. My assignment yesterday was to teach my teacher about the Book of Mormon and how to pray (all in Italian). I needed to do a bit more work on answering "so what" questions though. It's nice to have feedback --- the big question was what's the big deal about the Book of Mormon that we teach it in the first lesson? Hard to explain on the spot in a different language when thinking half in English and half in Italian. I need to work on thinking in Italian, rather than trying to think in English and translating. They're almost like two separate knowledge banks though, like I have to copy and paste English knowledge to the Italian folder, because when I'm trying to teach in Italian it's really hard to draw out English ideas. My next assignment is to teach "what's the big deal about prophets, why should I care about them?" And we'll just work through the first lesson bit by bit I suppose. Hopefully I'll remember all of it. :) It's challenging. I think one of my biggest problems is that I have nobody to speak Italian with, and I'd improve a lot faster if I was talking to people who actually know what I'm saying. My district is learning fast, but they're still scared of conjugating verbs, and they only know three tenses. It does kind of feel like a CIA training place or something --- spiritual boot camp.
I'm learning to pray better in Italian --- it's hard to make it not feel like just a list sometimes, rather than an actual conversation with God. There's always so much to learn, but I'm doing pretty well. It's just hard to remember the things I want to write. And P-day really is the shortest/busiest day of the week.
We're getting two new sisters in our room tomorrow, they aren't Italians though, so we'll see how that goes with different schedules and everything. We're pretty good about quiet time and sleeping --- a lot of the sisters aren't --- they stay up way way late --- who knows how they can even function the next day. I generally get about 7-1/2 hours of sleep and it doesn't feel like much at all.
I really wish I knew if I was leaving or not, that would be nice.
What else is new . . . Ruth 1 makes up for the gory/disturbingness of Judges 19-21. Seriously --- weird stuff. But Ruth is pretty amazing.
The guy who gave our fireside on Sunday said to write nasty letters to people who told us "oh, that's nice and you'll have great scenery, too bad you won't baptize anyone." --- he said that's a sin. What they're trying to do in the MTC right now is get people to REALLY care about the investigators, and recognize that God has prepared thousands in every land to receive the gospel, and if we don't believe we'll be able to teach anyone, obviously we won't. Then he applied the hymn "Come, Come Ye Saints" to us as missionaries. It was a pretty cool fireside, the guy had lots of good stories and was pretty fun to listen to plus he had microphones set out for people to share thoughts/comments. AND HE DIDN'T GO OVER TIME!!! I like listening to people a lot better when they don't go half an hour over their allotted time, because we have such tight schedules that a half hour means a lot.
We sang in choir at last week's devotional (Tuesday). It was pretty cool. The choir is neat, only a tiny section of sisters and tons of elders. It sounds SO good. And Elder Groberg spoke, which was also pretty neat, I thought. We get a lot of good speakers here. And the firesides and devotionals make the weeks easier, I think, just because they inspire me to focus on being my best, and help me to realize that I'm doing really quite well.
I am glad I'm here. I'm learning so much, and I have an amazing zone. Really, Italy is getting some FANTASTIC people. The rest of the world is hopefully as lucky.
Anyway, I love you guys!
Have an excellent week!
XOXOXO Sorella Eliza
Comments