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