First Assignment!

From Elder Benjamin Smith's parents:

"We got a call from Benjamin's mission mom this afternoon, he arrived safe and sound in Italy. Sounds like they're tired, and went to bed at a hotel near the mission home. She informed us that Benjamin will be assigned to Modena, which is between Milan and Florence, and his companion will be Elder Kimball from Highland Utah. Pretty exciting! Stay tuned for his first adventures from Modena. His P-Day will be on Wednesday."

Andiamo in Italia!

Cara Famiglia!!

Abbiamo ricevuto i nostri piani di viaggio!! Siamo molto contenti! That means we got our flight plans so we're for sure leaving next week to go to Italy! Here's the plan: Leave the MTC ... next Tuesday, Feb. 22nd. [Fly] from SLC [to] Denver ... to Frankfurt, Germany, arriving at 11:35 AM on the morning of Feb. 23rd. [Then we] arrive in Milano at 4:55 PM!!! Woooooooooooooooooooooooo!!! Siamo troppo felice! Also we have a huge layover in Germany, something like 4 hours, so I should be able to call at least from there. I got a calling card from the bookstore yesterday so I should be good to go. Also, apparently the Mission President reimburses you for a second checked bag, so I'm probably going to buy one of the cheap ones from the bookstore so I don't have to worry about my bag being overweight. Should be good to go.

Other than that this week has been going great, typical week at the MTC. Italian is still good, we're really focusing on speaking as much Italian as physically possible in the last week. Last night we learned the last verb tense we're going to learn here, which is pretty exciting. The teachers have said that since now all the teachers are 100% speaking Italian they think we're a lot more prepared for full immersion than they were when they went. They said their teachers didn't speak that much Italian to them in the MTC, it was basically all English. But I'm sure we'll still be quite humbled when we arrive.

Music is good in the MTC. They still have the lame rule that you can't listen to any music at all because apparently some missionaries way back abused the privilege. But instead we can just play piano and make music! It's great. Playing piano helps lessen to shock of not hearing music almost ever. However, we do like one of the organists who plays the prelude and postlude music for devotionals. He always plays 'Army of Helaman' in the prelude and we even heard him playing 'Jupiter' by Gustav Holst during one of the postludes. I was so psyched, I wanted to go down and tell him thank you for giving me my soul back! I'm hoping we can listen to classical music in the field, if we can you should send a cd of The Planets.

Thanks everybody for the DearElders/letters I got this week or last week that I didn't mention or haven't written back (I'm surprised at how busy P-Days are even in the MTC!). So hopefully I should be able to write a bunch of letters today. I'm also probably going to mail a box home of some random stuff. Anyhoo, that's about all the news for this week.

So this week I was reflecting on how grateful I was for the MTC. I'm grateful for the scriptures, for the opportunity to have at least 3 hours every day just to study, grateful to have every meal planned out for me, grateful for awesome teachers who I hope I can be like in the mission field, grateful for my Savior, grateful for Preach my Gospel, grateful for living prophets, grateful for Joseph Smith and the early pioneer saints, grateful for my companion, grateful for my awesome district and zone, and grateful for everything else in my life. Non posso aspettare di andare in Italia e condividere il messaggio del vangelo di Gesu Cristo con loro, e io so che Dio ha preparato il popolo d'Italia a ricevere questo messaggio. So che Gesu Cristo e il nostro Salvatore, e mediante l'espiazione di Gesu Cristo possiamo essere purificati dei nostri peccati ed avere la gioia e speranza che solo puo venire tramite Cristo. So che anche il mio italiano non e perfetto, posso portare testimonianza della verita del Libro di Mormon, e che abbiamo un profeta vivente sulla terra oggi. Sono grato per tutte le benedizioni che il vangelo di Gesu Cristo mi ha dato, e voglio che il popolo d'Italia puo ricevere le stesse benedizioni. [I can not wait to go to Italy and share the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ with them, and I know that God has prepared the people of Italy to receive this message. I know that Jesus Christ is our Savior, and through the Atonement of Jesus Christ we can be cleansed of our sins and have the joy and hope that can only come through Christ. I know that my Italian is not perfect, I can testify of the truth of the Book of Mormon, and we have a living prophet on earth today. I am grateful for all the blessings that the gospel ofJesus Christ has given me, and I want the people of Italy to be able to receive the same blessings.]

Ciao!

-Anziano Benjamin Smith

Nuovi Missionari!

Cara Famiglia,

Questa settimana i nuovi missionari sono arrivati! Woohoo! That was the big news, there's 24 new Italians in the MTC. They are all pretty cool as far as I can tell, which I think is a requirement to be called to serve in Italy. There's 16 Elders and 8 Sisters, 6 Elders are going to Rome along with 2 of the Sisters, but the other 16 are all going to Milan! One of the Sisters is even being bumped up to travel with us because she's lived in Sardegna before and speaks really good Italian. In other news we are trying to sing the EFY Medley in Italian as a zone, I'm playing the piano for it! We practiced for the first time on Sunday and I was basically sight-reading but we're trying to be ready for Thursday auditions. Fun stuff.

Other than that it's a pretty normal week, not much new stuff going on. We taught in the TRC again this week all in Italian, the Plan of Salvation lesson. It was great, and Anziano Scheurn is rocking the Italian now. We taught these people who volunteer every week, it's a married couple where the wife is from Sicily and both of them served their missions in Milan about 5 years ago. They talk sooooo fast but they're really nice so it's awesome to teach them.

Hopefully we're getting travel plans this week! We are really excited, and can't wait until we see the papers in our mailbox. I dunno if I mentioned in a previous letter but we all got a letter from President Wolfgramm like 3 weeks ago that started "your MTC experience is drawing to a close..." and we were like yeah right! But now it really is. We basically have to write out mission goals out for him. Also he said he's going to be waiting at the airport for us, and some other travel stuff. All the news we hear out of missionaries in Milan from our teachers is that he's really cool, and that the work is amazing.

Honestly not much going on this week since every week is the same. I did get a nice all-Italian letter from Tyson! I understood almost all of it except the 'prendere due piccioni e una fava' phrase. But Fratello Tate explained it. I'm going to attempt writing him back a letter all in Italian. Sounds like everything is going well back in McLean, good work Packers, I can't believe they won.

I'm grateful to be here in the MTC, and I know this is where I'm supposed to be. I know the Book of Mormon is a true book and has all the answers to questions we have. I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet and that he saw Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. I'm grateful for how much the gospel and the church have blessed my life and the potential they have to bless others. I know this church is true, and I know my Savior lives. The church is true!

Love,
Anziano Benjamin Smith

Ciao!

Cara Famiglia,

This week has been pretty normal. Not much new stuff going on, we still have class all the time and Italian is going great. Yesterday we did the TRC all in Italian again, and we taught the Plan of Salvation lesson. It was cool because we were on exchanges with other Elders, so I got to see how the other Elders in the district teach and stuff. The lesson went well and they agreed to our baptism commitment so we're golden. Whenever we go in the TRC we say a phrase to pump ourselves up (or at least I do) where we say "Accenda l'acqua, perche oggi, batteziamo!"). Basically it means "turn on the water, because today, we baptize!!" Good stuff.

Oh! Also we played Come Thou Fount in Sacrament meeting. We might audition it to perform for a meeting or something, but I dunno. We're also really trying to work on 'I Love the Lord' as a zone because it's basically the best song in the world. It's really tough though because it's all a cappella and has a couple tough key changes. Also tell Sister Richards thanks for writing me and also tell her thanks for the arrangement she gave me of 'If You Could Hie To Kolob.' It's awesome! I can't play it perfectly yet but it's so intense and everyone in my district loves the arrangement.

Complimenti to Jeremy and Ashley for writing me this week. I am writing them back today. Oh also thanks for the letter from Sister Dickson! I have seen Maria a couple times, but not for the last 2-3 weeks. She was teaching on my floor but then we changed from our awesome building to a not-as-nice one. One funny thing I dunno if I mentioned is that since none of us (including the teachers) like having a chalkboard, we duct taped a 2x3 foot white board in the middle of the blackboard. It's really small and pretty silly but it's soooo much better than a blackboard. Also another funny thing that has been happening recently is DearElder making a fool of themselves. So what happened was I got this DearElder with letters that obviously weren't intended for me, but were still addressed to an Elder Benjamin Smith. Coincidentally, as I was thinking about how I should get them to him, another cool Elder in my Zone was like "Hey, did you know I know another Benjamin Smith who was in my lifeguarding class back home?" I was like "wow tell him to come get his mail! And to tell his family the right box number!" So we actually ended up seeing him and after a couple times actually remembered to bring his mail to give to him. So that got sorted out.....OR SO WE THOUGHT! Nah but really last night he saw me at dinner and was like "hey, this time some of your letters got spliced into my DearElders!" So me and my zone friend went over to his dorm yesterday and picked them up. He's actually a cool guy, but DearElder isn't. The mixing up of letters was pretty egregious(big english word!).

In other news if you guys have heard about the missionary that got hit by a car in Georgia, apparently he was serving in Elder Scheurn's sister's ward. Pretty crazy, apparently some guy was bending down looking for his glasses when he swerved off the road and hit the Elder who was riding his bike. He's in a coma and can't breath on his own, so keep him in your prayers.

This week's spiritual thought is an awesome activity Fratello Tate did last night. He brought in his friend who speaks Cambodian and had him share a really powerful spiritual message. The point was that we couldn't understand anything he said (literally Cambodian is crazy I don't know how people speak it), but that we could still feel the Spirit and the power of his message. The only thing we got was because he wrote on the board that he was talking about Mosiah 24:14-15. Those are some awesome scriptures right there. I know the Book of Mormon is a true book, and I'm grateful for the power the scriptures can have in our lives if we read and study them daily. I know Joseph Smith was a prophet who was called of God to teach the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. I know that the work we are doing is the work of God, and that we are called to Italy for a reason. One of our subs gave us a great lesson about how when you get called to Italy people normally say things like 'Oh, you'll plant seeds' or 'It will be pretty, but you won't baptize anyone.' Basically he shoved that aside and said the seeds have been planted for 44 years, now it's time to harvest. All the news we hear out of the mission is that baptisms are going way up, and the people there are ready. Especially with the Temple being built, it should be an amazing time.

That's all I got for this week, ciao!

-Anziano Benjamin Smith