Elder Benjamin Smith's Mission Blog: January 2011

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Another Week at the MTC!

Cara Famiglia,

Well another week has flown by here at the MTC. It's gotten to the point that everything basically seems the same. It's all just one big blur. And that's not necessarily a bad thing either! Italian is progressing great, we did a ceremony on Thursday where we committed to speak 100% Italian from now until we leave the MTC(Almost a month!) except for branch meetings and district meetings because our Branch President doesn't speak Italian. It's going pretty well, Italian is sweet! Also yesterday we taught the Restoration lesson at the TRC fully in Italian again. It was different because we did intra-district exchanges, so I taught with Elder Murray. We taught these two people that both served in the Milan mission, the girl was from Sicilia and they both talked soooooooo fast, but I felt like I could understand basically everything. The funny part was when I was talking about Jesus and I said 'Gesù Cristo ha soffrito per i nostri peccati' which instead of meaning 'Jesus Christ suffered for our sins' means 'Jesus Christ fried (like fried chicken) for our sins.' So the actual word I should've used was 'sofferto.' The people afterwards told me they almost burst out laughing, but it's better I do it here than in Italy.

Everything else is going well, the district is great. We get to go to the Temple today so that should be good. We are counting down the days until the new Italians get here, there's 24 new coming in a week from tomorrow! And we found out that the next batch that comes in six weeks after that will have 38 Italians! So there will be 62 Italians in the MTC in like 7-8 weeks. Ridiculous! Speaking of Italian, I found out that the best hymn ever is only in the Italian Hymnbook, called 'Mandate Voci di Gioa all'eterno', which roughly translates as 'Send Voices of Joy to all Eternity.' You should all try and find it and listen to it. Also, this week my companion and I and another Elder in our Zone are going to audition a special musical number of 'Come Thou Fount' to see if we can play it at one of the devotionals or firesides. We are also working on the a cappella song 'I Love the Lord' to audition as a Zone. That song is awesome too, it's basically 2 Ne. 4 put to the music of Be Still, My Soul, a winning combination [embedded below]. The Priesthood choir of something sang it a couple years ago in one of the sessions of conferences I think, so you should try and find it on youtube and give it a listen, it's way good. Also, props to the Evans sisters this week, both of them wrote me letters! It was good to hear from them; give everyone in McLean my best.

So this week I was really impressed with Alma 26. It's probably the best missionary chapter ever. Verse 12 is my favorite that says "Yea, I know that I am nothing, as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things; yea, behold, many mighty miracles we have wrought in this land, for which we will praise his name forever." It made me think about how the stereotypical thing to think about Italy is that you won't baptize anybody, but if we have faith we can bring to pass miracles anywhere. I'm grateful that a Temple is being built there because I know the Lord is preparing the people to hear the gospel. I've gained a great testimony of the power of the Spirit in conversion and how necessary it is. I know the Book of Mormon is true and I'm grateful for all the blessings the gospel has provided for my life.

-Anziano Benjamin Smith

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Monopoly and Brother Holland's Opus

Cara Famiglia,

So this week has flown by as usual. The MTC is still the same, and is going great. Classes are fun and we've learned a bunch of new Italian in the past week so that's good. Yesterday in the TRC we taught the first lesson fully in Italian for the first time. It was kind of scary but I think we did well. The first part of my subject line comes from that, it's a really funny story. We were getting to know the people (it was a guy and a girl), and the guy said he was from Napoli and the girl was from Roma. So my companion was asking them if they liked those cities and so he said Ti piace Roma? [Do you like Rome?] to the girl and she was like yeah it's great. Then he was trying to say the same thing for Napoli but he accidentally said what basically sounded like 'ti piace monopoly?' [(Do you like monopoly?] It was really unexpected and funny and the guy was just like "I mean, yeah, I like to play monopoly." Maybe it doesn't sound as funny in the email but it was really funny in real life.

The other exciting thing that happened this week was that last Tuesday (after P-Day was over so I didn't write about it then and they don't actually tell you who's coming until like 10 minutes before) Brother Holland came to speak! It was awesome, he's really passionate about missionary work and really lays it on missionaries to be better. One of the things he said that I liked was something like "Called to serve...we sang that as our opening hymn and I've sung that song ten thousand times. Called to serve -- but so what? You better do something about it!" It reminded me of Elder Bednar's talk from a while ago where he said "don't just go on a mission, become a missionary!" He also talked about Peter and the feed my sheep story after Christ was resurrected, and about how awesome Preach my Gospel is. It was a great talk. Also I'm hoping Brother Gong comes to speak tonight, that should be sweet. Also on Sunday we had a talk from our new MTC President who's name is Gordon Brown. It's funny because there was a counselor in the last MTC Presidency who's last name was Clegg. I hear David Cameron is running for MTC President in 2012. Scherzo!

Not much else is going on, the schedule is basically the same all the time. On Thursday we're going to only speak Italian, which should be fun stuff. Oh one thing is I actually saw David Cramer on the campus yesterday, he was walking in to volunteer for the Norwegian TRC. So I talked with him for a little bit, that was cool. Also everyone at the MTC gets really mad when the mail is closed, so unlike when we were at school we didn't like the federal holiday yesterday because no mail came. Today should be like Christmas for mail; they closed the mailroom early on Saturday too.

Sono molto grato per questa possibilita d'essere nell'MTC. So che Il Libro di Mormon e vero e so che c'e un profeta vivente nella terra oggi. Sono grato per tutte le benedizione di Dio che ho ricevuto, e so che il popolo in Italia hanno bisogno d'ascoltare al nostro messaggio. So che Joseph Smith era un profeta di Dio, e che ha tradotto Il Libro di Mormon. [I am very grateful for this possibility to be at the MTC. I know that the Book of Mormon is true and I Know there is a prophet living on the earth today. I am grateful for all the blessings of God that I have received and I know that the Italian people have need to listen to our message. I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God and that he translated the Book of Mormon]

-Anziano Smith

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Time's Fun When You're Having Flies - Kermit

Cara Famiglia,

The MTC is still flying by. I can't believe it's been a week since I wrote you guys, it feels like yesterday. My companion and I always joke about how fast time goes and we say 'It's service day tomorrow!!' almost every day. Service Day is Friday where our district does an hour of cleaning in our building in the morning. But it always seems like it's the next day. In big news the older districts left today, which is pretty sad. The residence seems really empty without them, and our table at lunch will be less crowded. That includes Elder Luke from Stafford who was my former ZL and he's going to Rome, he's a cool guy. The only exception was Elder McMullen (sp?), one of the Elders from England, is staying for an extra month or so because he had to get wrist surgery a couple weeks ago from some pre-existing wrist injury. But he's really cool and optimistic about it.

Also, I got to be a host missionary this week! Basically my job was to tear families apart. Not really, but that's what it sort of felt like. I would take the Elder from the car to the administration building to have him get his tags and everything and then show him where his classroom/residence was. The first Elder I hosted probably thinks I'm really dumb because I couldn't find his classroom; the reason was because we were in the wrong building. But oh well. Then the second Elder I hosted was from upstate New York going to Rio de Janeiro and his name was Elder Dickson! He was a cool dude, and he actually lives down the hall from me and is in my branch. When I took him to his classroom I thought he might get Maria Dickson as his teacher because she taught on the floor where he was (it's our old room that my district misses because it has a white board instead of a chalkboard and is nicer in general). But alas, she wasn't. I did hear about Palmer, I last talked to him on Thursday or Friday, I don't remember, but he told me he was leaving Saturday morning. Didn't get to see him take off or anything, I saw his companion later in the day to ask about him though.

Italian is still going awesome, we had a talk with our teachers on Thursday and got really pumped about about the SYL(Speak Your Language) mentality. Basically we all want to speak Italian as much as we possibly can, so I try to almost never speak English. Unfortunately one of our teachers, Fratello Taylor, is leaving, but we met our new teacher Fratello Tate yesterday. He's a really nice guy and served in the Catania mission, so that should be good. On his last day Fratello Taylor just showed us pictures from his mission and stuff, and our district gave him a thank you card from the bookstore. I dunno if I mentioned before, but he was the last American to serve in the Switzerland part of the mission, soooooo lucky. I'm hoping they open it up to Americans again while I'm there. Also had some sweet pictures of other Milan Mission shenanigans that gives us something to look forward to.

I did get the package Mom sent with the cd, so that's good. And I have played a fair amount of piano here, I played for Priesthood and two Sacrament meetings on Sunday. One was ours and the other Sacrament Meeting was a special one for all the employees that work in the cafeteria on Sunday, that was really cool.

This week we had an awesome discussion about being afraid in one of our classes. Basically, we determined that we have nothing to be afraid of because the Lord is on our side. We looked at that awesome scripture in 2 Kings 16 I think where it says "do not fear, for they that be with us are more than they that be with them." And then another awesome couple of scriptures are 2 Tim. 1:7 and D&C 68:6. Brother Bulloch talked about an occasion how they encountered a large Catholic youth group thing and just thought of that scripture and so they decided to go testify to them. It sounded really awesome, and it gets me pumped up to go talk to people in Italy about the gospel. I know this church is true, I know the Book of Mormon is true, and I know that the work we are doing is the work of God. I'm very grateful for my family and all they've done for me and am thankful for my Savior Jesus Christ. I finished reading Jesus the Christ this week and it basically blew my mind, it's such an awesome book. I learned so much and gained a lot of appreciation for what He went through.

Ciao!

-Anziano Benjamin Smith

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

MTC 3.0

Well I had a long email written out but it got lost so I'll try and re-create it in all it's glory.

Cara Famiglia,

This week has been good and flown by, it feels like just yesterday I was sitting here to write you guys. To Mom: I got the overnight package and it was sweet, good to get all that stuff. Also I dunno if I ever told you guys but there's a silly rule that music is banned in the MTC. But you can still send me CDs. I've also gotten some DearElders from Mom and Dad, it sounds like you got my letter with pictures (PS DearElder is the best system ever, it's better than email because I can read it every day!). Sounds like everything is going well in McLean though. New Year's was a completely normal day here except that we got no mail :( and they specifically had all the District Leaders tell people not to stay up late. For P-Day today we get to go to the temple for the first time since we've been here, it re-opened yesterday.

Classes are going really well, we have a ton of classes every day and my teachers are cool so that's fun. Italian is still awesome, I feel like I'm picking it up pretty well although I'm sure I'm going to be humbled when I get to Italy. Yesterday in the TRC we had a cool experience where my companion and I had to talk in Italian for 15 minutes straight because one of the teachers was pretending to be an investigator that we were taking for church. So we talked to him about his family, his work, and if he'd kept up his commitments to pray and read the Book of Mormon. I was happy to be able to understand most of it, and I was even able to answer a question he had pulled out of the Book of Mormon about the Godhead in understandable Italian. So that was sweet. Unfortunately the English part didn't go as well, we taught the Plan of Salvation lesson and she was fine with it until the last bit, when we couldn't answer her question about kingdoms of glory satisfactorily. But we talked about it afterwards in class as a district and figured out how to answer it in the future. Also I don't know if I mentioned but every Sunday night they show various church films and talks that you can see. So on Sunday we watched the Joseph Smith movie. It was awesome and got us all pumped up to do missionary work, especially because it has my favorite quote where it says "Shall we not go on in so great a cause?" It reminds me how important this work is, and one of my teachers made a cool remark that kept him going in the field where he would knock on a door and think to himself "wow, this person has no idea that I am about to share the most important message in the world with them." I thought that was a good optimistic thought. I have a testimony now of how important missionary work is, and I know that all of us missionaries are specifically called to serve wherever we are assigned. I know that this church is true, and I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God. I can't wait to get to Italy and share my testimony with the people there. Love all you guys,

Ciao,

Anziano Benjamin Smith

P.S. my MTC Box # is 308, and my departure date is 2/23/11. Tell everyone to write me through DearElder!

Saturday, January 1, 2011

Benjamin at the MTC: Christmas

1. Anziano Scheurn wearing his new Washington, D.C. shirt (present from my parents).

2-5 A bunch of the Italian elders getting together to sing Christmas songs in Italian one night. We put our name tags on the little tree as ornaments.

6. First temple walk to the Provo Temple.

7. Elder Pieper and I (He lived on Palmer's Floor at BYU and left for Paris, France a couple days ago.)

8. Anziano Scheurn (my companion) and I.

9 - 10. My district. (From left to right, Elders Russo, Cluff, Warren, me, Portellano, Scheurn, Wilkey, and Murray.

11. Elders Wilkey and Portellano.

12. My companion and I taking the typical map picture. We're pointing at Milan, Italy.

13. Biking missionaries statute covered in snow from a big storm we had last P-Day. Unfortunately all the snow is gone today.

14 - 15. We built a snowman, actually two. You can see the snowman's companion behind us.

16. I can walk up walls.

17. Christmas lights at the MTC! Apparently they've never done this before, so it's a big deal. They look really good though and they are still up which is nice.

18. Anziano Scheurn with glasses with fake mustache.

19. Singing/playing guitar at the MTC. Not me, some random Elders.

20. Me using Diana's awesome present as a straw. They also made for very effective whips.

21. My zone Leader, Elder Luke, who is from Stafford at the temple.

22. My bed, which is made every day. I'm on the top bunk.

23. My end of the room. Note the Arabic prayer rug and Italian plug.

24. My desk: it's much cleaner than the one the international Elders use.

25. One of my name tags.