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!