Cara Famiglia,
The MTC is great! Sto molto bene. Mi piace parlare in italiano tutti i giorni. Italian is the bomb.com. Sooooo...let's see if I can remember everything that's happened since Wednesday.
I got here, and went through the whole introduction, got my name tags and books and everything. My host missionary(who's Chinese speaking) told me my bag of scriptures/PMG/other stuff wasn't nearly as big as his, so I was glad about that. After all that stuff I went up to where we have hours and hours of class every day and met my teachers. They are awesome, their names are Fratello Bulloch and Fratello Taylor. They both served in Milan, Italy and are really cool. Fratello Taylor was actually the last American missionary to serve in the Switzerland part of the mission before the EU decided to be dumb and ban Americans from serving there. Hopefully that will change when I'm in the mission. We went through a gym orientation video on the computer and then met everyone in our district. My companion is Elder Scheurn(pronounced like sure with an 'n' at the end) and he's from Gilbert, Arizona. I asked him if he knew any Higginsons and he said the name sounded really familiar but he didn't know for sure. He's a cool guy, he played football and wrestled and did track in high school so he's quite athletic. Also in my room are Elders Wilkey and Portellano. They are both sooooo awesome. Elder Wilkey is from Bournemoth, England and has the sweetest British accent ever! Now our district says stuff like 'rubbish' and talks in a British accent all the time. Elder Portellano is from France, near Marseille and basically already speaks Italian because he studied it for a couple years in school. His English is a little shaky, he can speak pretty well but it's hard for him to understand when teachers/fireside speakers talk fast. He also finds the phrases 'What the heck' and 'come on' to be hilarious. It's soo funny to hear him say those two. Also in my district are Elder Cluff, from Provo, Utah about 5-10 minutes away from the MTC, he lives near Utah Lake apparently. His companion is Elder Murray from Filler or Filer, Idaho, I dunno how to spell it. Then the last companionship in our district of 8 is Elder Russo from Sacramento/Georgia and Elder Warren from Dallas, Texas. Our district is amazing, everyone is really cool and really dedicated to studying and learning Italian. Our teachers have us really excited to go to Italy.
Italian is, as I said, flippin sweet. It sounds so cool and I love speaking it all the time. When Elder Portellano doesn't understand things in English sometimes I explain them to him in Italian. I feel like I'm picking it up pretty fast, I can already pray, bear my testimony, tell the story of the first vision, and talk about a bunch of gospel stuff in the language. We have a district goal to only pray in Italian from now on. Oh also, I'm the district leader, so I get to coordinate stuff for our district and pick up mail every day! Wooooo!! Getting Dear Elder letters rocks, and packages rock even more. I've gotten the dear elder package mom sent and I'm going to pick up another package that I got after I finish laundry.
Oh also for Mom I met that Elder from Stafford, VA who is going to Rome. His name is Elder Luke and he and his companion Elder Miller are our Zone Leaders. They're both really cool and live two doors down from us. Ummmm, other stuff.....I put up my Italian flag in our room, so that's sweet. I'm also rockin my Prayer Rug in our room, it combines with the Italian flag for some sweet decorations. Other than that not much is going on, we have class all the time and it's nice to get P-Day today to just relax. Unfortunately the temple is closed for the next two weeks, but that just means more chill time on P-Day. I also dunno how to send pictures yet but when I find out I'll send some. I've only seen Elder Dickson a couple times, yesterday we met in the bookstore and bore our testimonies to each other in our languages. He also saw me from a distance on the first day and called my name out and waved as I was walking to my dorm.
The MTC is amazing though. The Spirit is so strong here and it's cool to see so many people focused on learning the gospel to serve people. Io so che la chiesa e vera, e che Joseph Smith e un profeta e vide il Padre Celeste e Gesu Cristo. Io so che Il Libro di Mormon e vero, e che siamo chiamati di essere missionari in Italia per servire il poplo d'Italia. That's a simple testimony in Italian, some of the 'e's should have accents on them but I don't know how to do that. Love you all!
Ciao,
-Anziano Benjamin Smith
The MTC is great! Sto molto bene. Mi piace parlare in italiano tutti i giorni. Italian is the bomb.com. Sooooo...let's see if I can remember everything that's happened since Wednesday.
I got here, and went through the whole introduction, got my name tags and books and everything. My host missionary(who's Chinese speaking) told me my bag of scriptures/PMG/other stuff wasn't nearly as big as his, so I was glad about that. After all that stuff I went up to where we have hours and hours of class every day and met my teachers. They are awesome, their names are Fratello Bulloch and Fratello Taylor. They both served in Milan, Italy and are really cool. Fratello Taylor was actually the last American missionary to serve in the Switzerland part of the mission before the EU decided to be dumb and ban Americans from serving there. Hopefully that will change when I'm in the mission. We went through a gym orientation video on the computer and then met everyone in our district. My companion is Elder Scheurn(pronounced like sure with an 'n' at the end) and he's from Gilbert, Arizona. I asked him if he knew any Higginsons and he said the name sounded really familiar but he didn't know for sure. He's a cool guy, he played football and wrestled and did track in high school so he's quite athletic. Also in my room are Elders Wilkey and Portellano. They are both sooooo awesome. Elder Wilkey is from Bournemoth, England and has the sweetest British accent ever! Now our district says stuff like 'rubbish' and talks in a British accent all the time. Elder Portellano is from France, near Marseille and basically already speaks Italian because he studied it for a couple years in school. His English is a little shaky, he can speak pretty well but it's hard for him to understand when teachers/fireside speakers talk fast. He also finds the phrases 'What the heck' and 'come on' to be hilarious. It's soo funny to hear him say those two. Also in my district are Elder Cluff, from Provo, Utah about 5-10 minutes away from the MTC, he lives near Utah Lake apparently. His companion is Elder Murray from Filler or Filer, Idaho, I dunno how to spell it. Then the last companionship in our district of 8 is Elder Russo from Sacramento/Georgia and Elder Warren from Dallas, Texas. Our district is amazing, everyone is really cool and really dedicated to studying and learning Italian. Our teachers have us really excited to go to Italy.
Italian is, as I said, flippin sweet. It sounds so cool and I love speaking it all the time. When Elder Portellano doesn't understand things in English sometimes I explain them to him in Italian. I feel like I'm picking it up pretty fast, I can already pray, bear my testimony, tell the story of the first vision, and talk about a bunch of gospel stuff in the language. We have a district goal to only pray in Italian from now on. Oh also, I'm the district leader, so I get to coordinate stuff for our district and pick up mail every day! Wooooo!! Getting Dear Elder letters rocks, and packages rock even more. I've gotten the dear elder package mom sent and I'm going to pick up another package that I got after I finish laundry.
Oh also for Mom I met that Elder from Stafford, VA who is going to Rome. His name is Elder Luke and he and his companion Elder Miller are our Zone Leaders. They're both really cool and live two doors down from us. Ummmm, other stuff.....I put up my Italian flag in our room, so that's sweet. I'm also rockin my Prayer Rug in our room, it combines with the Italian flag for some sweet decorations. Other than that not much is going on, we have class all the time and it's nice to get P-Day today to just relax. Unfortunately the temple is closed for the next two weeks, but that just means more chill time on P-Day. I also dunno how to send pictures yet but when I find out I'll send some. I've only seen Elder Dickson a couple times, yesterday we met in the bookstore and bore our testimonies to each other in our languages. He also saw me from a distance on the first day and called my name out and waved as I was walking to my dorm.
The MTC is amazing though. The Spirit is so strong here and it's cool to see so many people focused on learning the gospel to serve people. Io so che la chiesa e vera, e che Joseph Smith e un profeta e vide il Padre Celeste e Gesu Cristo. Io so che Il Libro di Mormon e vero, e che siamo chiamati di essere missionari in Italia per servire il poplo d'Italia. That's a simple testimony in Italian, some of the 'e's should have accents on them but I don't know how to do that. Love you all!
Ciao,
-Anziano Benjamin Smith
P.S. Oh also we went to the TRC (Teaching Resource Center) for the first time yesterday. What you do is you talk to 3 people for five minutes in Italian, just getting to know them and then saying you have an important message for them that you want to talk more about, and try and get a followup appointment. It's pretty tough and my companion is struggling with the language a bit but he's learning well and can almost tell the First Vision story in Italian with some pronunciation a little off. Ma tutto e bene. Then after the Italian bit we go teach a first lesson to someone in English. It'll be that way for the first 4 weeks I think, then we do everything in Italian. Ciao!
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