4 August 2009
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 sleep.
It's been a great week though. At the TEC last week (I don't know what any of the silly letter names mean, sorry---this must be why they tell people not to use them!) we taught a teacher who was pretending to be a lady who was really angry with God because her parents had died, so we talked to her a bit about eternal families and then started talking about the Restoration. And she read Joseph Smith History 1:16-17 and she almost started crying. It was kind of crazy. She said she's been teaching there for a year and nothing like that has ever happened to her before. But it was very cool,
Our "progressive investigator" Alessandro is getting more talkative. He has a hard time understanding what we're telling him though, and he doesn't feel like he's talking to anyone when he's praying. But I think we're too smart and we definitely need to simplify our lessons. The Apostles say they should be simple enough that a child can understand them. Alex said about the people he's teaching, too, that the church would baptize more people if they sent out missionaries with the intelligence of a 14 year-old and the maturity of a 22 year-old. Which actually makes a whole lot of sense.
Our other teacher, Sorella Jones, was out of town last weekend and was also offered a position as head of Italian and Spanish languages---she said she'd take it as long as she could finish teaching our district. Since she was gone, we weren't able to see our other "progressive investigator," Patrizia, much last week. But Patrizia is really worried about her son, who keeps having seizures and the doctors don't know why. And her older son is acting up in school because the parents have to focus so much energy on the sick son, and she's worried that her family is falling apart. We feel that all we can do is serve her. We just need to help her clean her house if she'll let us and find someone to take her son to school and soccer. Patrizia is a real woman that Sister Jones taught in Provo, we'll find out how she's doing in real life when we're about to head to Italy.
I've actually lost a bit of weight since being here. Not a ton, just about 3-5 pounds. Our goal as a companionship---at least Sorella Miller and I, is only 1 dessert a day, and only eat food that we actually like. But with no snacking and normal sized meals I'm doing pretty well. Plus they have excellent salads---they make a different one every meal---and fruit selection. They have a scale in the gym though, so we can see where we're at.
Finally a relaxing P-day! We got up before 6 to do our laundry---nobody is scheduled until 7, our time is actually at 8, but if we go at 6 then we're done by 8 which is way nice. Then we go print out e-mails, read them, and go back and type.
I am super excited, my friend got her mission call last to Italy Milan! She in my class from 102-202, and she's awesome. Her name is Naomi Harper. I am so excited that she'll be in Italy. I was hoping she would get to go there too. Our other friend who was in Italian classes with us until 202 was called to the Baltic Mission. Estonian is a little different than Italian, I think. So that's very amazing that Naomi is going to Milan. I have to tell all our Milanesi now (there are only 3 until Wednesday, tomorrow, though). We bought the new Sorelle Innari (hymnals), because that's the not-tradition of the Sorelle. We're excited to have a couple more sisters. It's so crazy to be one of three sisters in the MTC who are learning Italian.
We've tarted teaching the second lesson now. We're having a much easier time with it. I feel like the first lesson is a ton of information. We haven't figured out how to teach it well, and I'm convinced it can't be done in one sitting, at least not if the investigator has any questions. In two weeks we teach the first lesson in Italian. I'm not sure we're ready, but we shall try to be. :) We're still getting along pretty well. We're learning how to be less sarcastic and more encouraging. Because we're all learning and it is rough, so it's nice to not have people saying mean things, even if they didn't realize it was mean. One of my companions is really struggling with Italian---she spoke German almost fluently and can't quite get the Latin/Romance language---and my other companion said something that came out way mean even though she didn't intend it to be, and made her cry. So in order to avoid that kind of situation our goal this week is no negativity. :)
In 3 weeks we're hoping to speak Italian pretty much ALWAYS, since we'll be the oldest district and we want to set good examples. So hopefully we'll get to practice the next few weeks and be able to do that. Sounds like there's a lot of exciting stuff going on at home right now. I'm glad you're exercising Mom. :) Gym time here is great, but not as exciting as Gilad and yoga. But we have gym at 8 Friday night, and everyone is jealous.
Thanks for the Google pictures. Haha! Those made my day.
I love you guys!
Love Eliza
P.S. If you do move, don't forget to tell me and send the address, okay? Thanks. ;)
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 sleep.
It's been a great week though. At the TEC last week (I don't know what any of the silly letter names mean, sorry---this must be why they tell people not to use them!) we taught a teacher who was pretending to be a lady who was really angry with God because her parents had died, so we talked to her a bit about eternal families and then started talking about the Restoration. And she read Joseph Smith History 1:16-17 and she almost started crying. It was kind of crazy. She said she's been teaching there for a year and nothing like that has ever happened to her before. But it was very cool,
Our "progressive investigator" Alessandro is getting more talkative. He has a hard time understanding what we're telling him though, and he doesn't feel like he's talking to anyone when he's praying. But I think we're too smart and we definitely need to simplify our lessons. The Apostles say they should be simple enough that a child can understand them. Alex said about the people he's teaching, too, that the church would baptize more people if they sent out missionaries with the intelligence of a 14 year-old and the maturity of a 22 year-old. Which actually makes a whole lot of sense.
Our other teacher, Sorella Jones, was out of town last weekend and was also offered a position as head of Italian and Spanish languages---she said she'd take it as long as she could finish teaching our district. Since she was gone, we weren't able to see our other "progressive investigator," Patrizia, much last week. But Patrizia is really worried about her son, who keeps having seizures and the doctors don't know why. And her older son is acting up in school because the parents have to focus so much energy on the sick son, and she's worried that her family is falling apart. We feel that all we can do is serve her. We just need to help her clean her house if she'll let us and find someone to take her son to school and soccer. Patrizia is a real woman that Sister Jones taught in Provo, we'll find out how she's doing in real life when we're about to head to Italy.
I've actually lost a bit of weight since being here. Not a ton, just about 3-5 pounds. Our goal as a companionship---at least Sorella Miller and I, is only 1 dessert a day, and only eat food that we actually like. But with no snacking and normal sized meals I'm doing pretty well. Plus they have excellent salads---they make a different one every meal---and fruit selection. They have a scale in the gym though, so we can see where we're at.
Finally a relaxing P-day! We got up before 6 to do our laundry---nobody is scheduled until 7, our time is actually at 8, but if we go at 6 then we're done by 8 which is way nice. Then we go print out e-mails, read them, and go back and type.
I am super excited, my friend got her mission call last to Italy Milan! She in my class from 102-202, and she's awesome. Her name is Naomi Harper. I am so excited that she'll be in Italy. I was hoping she would get to go there too. Our other friend who was in Italian classes with us until 202 was called to the Baltic Mission. Estonian is a little different than Italian, I think. So that's very amazing that Naomi is going to Milan. I have to tell all our Milanesi now (there are only 3 until Wednesday, tomorrow, though). We bought the new Sorelle Innari (hymnals), because that's the not-tradition of the Sorelle. We're excited to have a couple more sisters. It's so crazy to be one of three sisters in the MTC who are learning Italian.
We've tarted teaching the second lesson now. We're having a much easier time with it. I feel like the first lesson is a ton of information. We haven't figured out how to teach it well, and I'm convinced it can't be done in one sitting, at least not if the investigator has any questions. In two weeks we teach the first lesson in Italian. I'm not sure we're ready, but we shall try to be. :) We're still getting along pretty well. We're learning how to be less sarcastic and more encouraging. Because we're all learning and it is rough, so it's nice to not have people saying mean things, even if they didn't realize it was mean. One of my companions is really struggling with Italian---she spoke German almost fluently and can't quite get the Latin/Romance language---and my other companion said something that came out way mean even though she didn't intend it to be, and made her cry. So in order to avoid that kind of situation our goal this week is no negativity. :)
In 3 weeks we're hoping to speak Italian pretty much ALWAYS, since we'll be the oldest district and we want to set good examples. So hopefully we'll get to practice the next few weeks and be able to do that. Sounds like there's a lot of exciting stuff going on at home right now. I'm glad you're exercising Mom. :) Gym time here is great, but not as exciting as Gilad and yoga. But we have gym at 8 Friday night, and everyone is jealous.
Thanks for the Google pictures. Haha! Those made my day.
I love you guys!
Love Eliza
P.S. If you do move, don't forget to tell me and send the address, okay? Thanks. ;)
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